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Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Tidings

Ruby Rose walked down the street, being pulled practically by Zwei. Her loyal...she hesitated to call him dog because at this point he was almost anything but, but he was still a dog at his heart. So yeah, her dog.

It had been one week since the Vytal Incursion, as the news had started to call it. One week since the largest Grimm invasion ever recorded, bigger even than the one that took down Mt. Glenn, attempted to attack Beacon itself.

Drawn there by the machinations of one Cinder Fall.

Zwei paused as he got to the door, giving a soft whine as he started to paw on it. "Wait just a second Zwei, I need to get my keys out," Ruby answered his growing pawing. "You can go to the bathroom once I unlock the door..." she murmured.

Her shop wasn't entirely locked with her scroll. It was, at least nowadays, a mechanical and electronic lock, if only because Blake Belladonna had told her of how easy they were to hack. At least for Blake. Most of her compatriots in the White Fang had also seen it relatively easy to hack, and it was how Ruby had found herself face to face with Roman Torchwick...the second time.

Her door unlocked with a simple green light, and immediately Zwei rushed in. Ruby wisely chose to let go of the leash as he poured on the speed, heading straight for the back room. "You know, you could go outside like every other dog," Ruby called out, getting a small howl from the bathroom door as it shut.

She gave a happy sigh as she looked around her shop. She was one of Vale's few weaponsmiths. A specialist in the forging of custom weapons for the Huntsman and Huntresses of Beacon, the small school Flare, Pharos, and Signal. Her shop had been untouched in the thirty minutes that she'd been walking Zwei, exactly as she'd left it. A few aisles of seemingly custom weapons stood on the side, each one located with a small placard that said what its main types were, and what types of ammunition that it used.

Last year, she'd started to make a kind of special unique ammunition, that she'd ended up getting into a bit of business boom because Nora Valkyrie thought that blowing up a dust-infused mountain at only the highest spectacle event in years was a good idea.

Apparently, according to Qrow and Ozpin, Professor Port still ended up having it on repeat on his scroll, and watching that during his off-hours.

There were no weapons in her shop that used it yet, mostly because she wasn't one hundred percent certain of it's exact characteristics yet. She knew enough to make it relatively safe if the person she was giving it to was an explosives expert, which according to Ren, Nora was. And based on how she handled them, that was true.

But what that all did mean was that now she was getting more and more questions regarding how it was made.

In the front of the shop, close to the center, was a large high tech white arena built into the floor. With only a scroll push, Ruby could train for hours in there if she wanted, using either training dummies or if she just wanted to put up walls, she could. In the case of sparring.

She had yet to see if it would work against magic though, and she was hesitant to try it considering that her warranty for the parts was about up. And with Qrow's existence, she'd needed the longest warranty possible.

And it wasn't as if she hadn't used it. Either the arena or the warranties. The arena had seen more than its fair share of use, especially during the Breach, when the White Fang, being chased by Ghira and Kali Belladonna, decided to act early, and blow up the central park area, summoning a bunch of Grimm.

Right in the middle of Vale.

She had locked her two employees and all of their current visitors into the arena before she went out and started doing what Huntresses did best; kill Grimm.

She sat down on the small chair behind the glass counter showing off the small dust crystals and what purity they were. Below each larger one, she'd handwritten the expiration dates because she hadn't yet found the time to create new placards.

If she had to be honest, she hadn't yet had time to even try to remake Crescent Rose, or the Sundered Rose Copy.

The last week had been almost too busy. Insurance forms, especially, took far too long. And when it wasn't insurance, it was Ozpin who was begging her to reconsider joining Beacon a year early, despite the fact it was blatantly against the law.

And she was still considered a gun runner for the White Fang, considered they ordered nearly thirty five of the semi-automatic rifles. And it was only thanks to Qrow's extremely powerful and yet extremely unlucky Semblance that it wasn't worse than it was. So naturally, she wanted to play everything else safe. No more breaking the rules.

Nope, she'd do everything she needed to, by the book. She'd keep her hands clean!

Almost as if to answer her thoughts, Zwei then came out of the bathroom door, and Ruby didn't hear the flush. She stared at him for a moment, before he tilted his head cutely. "Did you wash your hands?" she asked, unconvinced of his innocence. He gave another head tilt, and a small pant, before he shook his head and wandered back in. Where she promptly heard a flush and the sink going.

"Good," she answered as he walked out the door, this time his head held high as he wandered up the stairs to the conjoined apartment. It was intended to originally be the storage room, but with her dad's help, they'd managed to convert it, legally, to an actual living unit. There were a whole lot of extra laws in there that she had no knowledge about, a lot of permits and some other changes and conversions that made her head swirl. She knew weapons, not legalities.

She sat down on the chair, letting in spin idly. "Think today's gonna be a busy day?" she asked Zwei, only to remember that he'd gone upstairs. "Fine, Zwei, don't answer me," she answered to herself instead. "Today's gonna be a good day!" she nodded.

The last of the insurance forms had been filed for the stuff that Cinder had broken for her, which was all bad metal anyways but no one was ever going to hear her saying that, and for everything else that might have or not have been taken from the shop.

It had been the Vytal Tournament Festival. Incredibly, the rest of the Festival had actually continued, and would be finishing up soon. It extended past Beacon finals, which was odd, but Ruby didn't now why. Maybe it was so that way the students could actually enjoy the Festival a bit?

But the Tournament had been the big draw. Everyone from Atlas to Vacuo, from Mistral and Vale, competed against each other in raging fierce one on one combat. Or two on two. Or four on four, if they were in the middle of the team matches.

It was this, Ruby knew, that Cinder Fall had launched her devious, diabolical, and completely nefarious plans. Although, she had to guess what exactly those plans...were.

Ozpin had figured most of it out, but Ruby was still exactly unsure why Cinder had decided to throw everything away in a last ditch attempt to make it work. There was supposedly some amount of effort to turn the CCT against Vale, but Ruby had accidentally damaged that during the Vytal Festival dance. And so her words, intended to be dark and weary and extremely uncomfortable, were instead broadcasted solely to Beacon and to Amity Arena.

And Atlas had showed up in surprising force. They had to keep a big battleship away from the fighting because they'd captured the White Fang, and with their mechs and drones acting as meatshields, or metalshields if Ruby had to be honest, for the actual Huntsman and Huntresses to fight the incoming Grimm.

But the most diabolical, the most nefarious thing that Cinder Fall had done? She had went and murdered Crescent Rose.

Her beloved scythe. The bestest of all the best weapons she'd ever made. A scythe almost too big for her to carry and wield safely, and yet she knew she was quite skilled with it. She'd even managed to beat her Uncle Qrow!...she wished. She'd knocked him down to forty percent aura, which was...not too bad. But she'd been fresh. Then again, Qrow was really skilled.

And Cinder had went and murdered it. The murdering murderer who murdered weapons. But that was only after it had been defiled by Emerald Sustrai, who thought that trading weapons was a good idea. Emerald had taken it, attempting to use her baby, her masterpiece, against James Ironwood himself.

She'd lost, obviously. That wasn't hard to figure out. Ruby had never fought Ironwood, and truth be told she really didn't want to. The man was way too serious for her liking.

But Ruby had fought Mercury Black. A man who seemed kinda nice actually, with these awesome prosthetic legs that doubled as shotguns if he wanted to. It had taken everything that she had, plus Winter Schnee, to help take him down.

They had been captured, as far as Ruby knew. Except Cinder. Cinder had been...well, there was no way she wasn't dead. Pierced through the heart from Pyrrha Nikos, a three or four time Mistralian champion who was probably the best fighter currently in Beacon, punched by Ruby's sister Yang Xiao Long, and even Blake had added to the fight against Cinder.

They were one of the most successful teams in Beacon, actually. They were second years now, as they'd officially gotten their final tests back.

Jaune, the last member of the team, had not been looking forward to seeing his grades for combat class, but even he had passed. And he was the first one to get a custom weapon for Ruby, so she had held Mors in particularly high regard.

It's full name was Crocea Mors, and it had been an ancestral weapon of the Arcs. Or the ancestral weapon, Jaune hadn't actually been clear on that to her. But he'd wanted the same thing, but better. With a ranged option. In other words, to turn the fully melee weapon into a mechashift.

It had been a complicated design. One of the most complicated that she'd had at the time, exception being Crescent Rose itself. Even Yang's Ember Celica, while complex, hadn't actually been that complicated because she'd been able to use new metal when needed.

Mors? Jaune had wanted the actual metal. And as any metalsmith knew, using old or already forged metal was a recipe for disaster. But Ruby had done it, exactly to her and Jaune's specification.

And, well, he may have gotten training from Pyrrha to help him up to the ranks. He was no amazing fighter, but he was no slouch anymore. Not the bottom of the class, as she'd been told last time that Ruby threatened to spar with him in the shop.

Her scroll buzzed, snapping her out of her reverie. She still had a few minutes before opening time, and everything had already been cleaned. Zwei had been fed...Lilac and Jasper shouldn't be calling in because they were already scheduled off...

She glanced at it, before she gave a sigh and rolled her eyes. Yet another message from Ozpin, begging her to join Beacon early. "Ozpin..." she sighed, throwing her head back, "I don't want to go to Beacon yet, I'm trying to keep my head down!" she called out to the air.

Zwei gave a helpful little yip from the top of the stairs. She looked over at her calendar, making sure that the 'Zwei fed' box had been checked. It was, although the mark was faint. Meaning that he had, once again, figured out how to try to get more food out of her. "No, Zwei, you're fine," Ruby answered. "You'll be fed later tonight." He gave a quiet whine.

She ignored Ozpin's scroll call, or scroll message. She'd listen or read it later, if she was bored. He knew her reasons for not wanting to join Beacon yet.

But that wasn't to say she didn't want to go. She absolutely did. And now it wasn't a question of if she was going to go, but simply when. She'd already basically accepted it, and she was, as Yang had put it once, a walking weapon of mass destruction. Although that wasn't to say she was actually all that good with it.

She shut her eyes, willing the power to come forth. It was a lot like calling her Semblance, Petal Storm, to the surface, but unlike her Semblance, it was more of an entire body power. She simply knew when it was on now.

Originally, when it had been at half strength, she couldn't tell. Now she could, at least. She could feel her emotions gauging the power, wondering which one to use at her behest. Satisfaction and frustration, for the wind? Aggression for lightning? Sadness and happiness for rain and water? And anger for fire?

The wind came bubbling up from nowhere, sending her cloak into the air. She used it lazily right now, trying to measure the room with it, giving an alarmed chuckle as it went by the dust. If it activated the dust crystals... ooh boy so maybe she shouldn't do this in the shop yet.

She turned it off, yet again glad that she could. When it had been at half power, she couldn't tell if it was on or off, let alone how to turn it off. As Ms. Goodwitch had once said to her, 'Ozpin gave her the power without bothering to tell her how to turn it off'.

Although that wasn't quite true. She had been the last ditch effort to keep the power of the Fall Maiden within Vale.

More than a year ago, Amber, the previous Fall Maiden, had been attacked by Cinder and her two cronies. Half the power of the Maiden had been stolen at the time, and Amber had been rushed to Beacon to try to keep her safe and alive.

Ozpin had done his best to keep her alive, but eventually someone with half a soul, half their aura, could only do so much. Even with the aura keep-Amber-alive machine, she'd only lasted about a year. And Ozpin had been left with no choices left, but to offer Ruby the position. Actually, he'd had a lot of choices, but all of them had been turned down for one reason or another.

Pyrrha Nikos had been his preferable choice. So he'd tested her, seeing how she'd do if put in a position of power over others, how she would act and react. And he also gave her Yang, the biggest troublemaker this side of the Roses and Xiao Longs.

Seriously, apparently Team PABY, or Team Peabody, was on course for beating out team STRQ's record for most amount of detention and trouble in Beacon history. And Ruby was still absolutely not certain that Peabody was a color, but every time she asked about it, Ozpin and Goodwitch had simply pointed to Oobleck and left it up to that.

Pyrrha...hadn't been able to keep Yang from causing trouble. Admittedly, half the trouble that Team PABY had caused was because of the other half of the partnership, Jaune Arc and Blake Belladonna.

But because she hadn't been able to keep them out of trouble, and in fact had her hands full with the team, Ozpin had decided to not have Pyrrha receive the power, or even to offer it.

The others on the table were maybes, but had been turned down for one reason or another. But Ruby, seeing as how she'd managed to turn Adam Taurus from extremism, which Ruby highly doubted she actually managed to do, he'd given her the offer.

And she'd accepted.

She still had a few scars from the fight with Cinder. They'd had a climactic duel in the rain, created by the Maiden power, fighting each other with wind and fire. Fire so hot that it could soften metal, or in places even melt it entirely.

Cinder had killed a lot of weapons that day, but in the end they had, like the phoenix, come back from the ashes.

Even if she'd had to boil the metal for a few hours and carefully manage to get the impurities such as dirt out of it before she could use it again. And she was lucky she'd even had the time to manage that, what with the insurance forms.

She looked at the door, wondering if maybe her two employees would come in through the door anyways. She only had them for a few months more at the latest of having them before they'd have to go back to their normal lives.

Actually, she looked towards the calendar. How long did she have them for? She'd miss them if it was already over, she'd barely had time to say goodbye, really.

Two more weeks, actually. Had it just been for the Vytal Festival? She remembered saying that to the both of them, and they'd both agreed without a problem. Jasper might have given her a side glance before telling her that it was already his plan.

He was the snarky kind of person to do that. Lilac was much more customer friendly, and she had a mind for numbers that exceeded even Ruby's. Although she wasn't all that good with weapons. Truthfully neither of them were, and neither of them had even thought of becoming Hunters.

Her scroll alarm blared, and with a satisfied sigh she quickly grabbed it up and unlocked the door. Opening hours. She was, the weaponsmith of Summer's Weapons Shop, was open for business once more.

If she expected someone to walk through the door immediately, she was hit with a realization that her shop wasn't all that. It was good, it was one of the only weaponshops in Vale that did custom weapons. Better than whatever that other shop was that had opened to try and get her out of business.

He'd had awesome weapons, sure, but he couldn't do customs. And apparently they were overpriced.

"Right. Shop time," she said, spinning the small comic section that Jasper had installed during the Vytal Tournament. It was just one of those spinny-racks with stands built into them, filled to the brim with comics. She glanced over at the door, as if halfway expecting someone to open it right away, despite that almost no one ever had at opening time. "I did unlock it, right?" she asked the air, before she used her Semblance, jumping over the counter.

She gave the door a quick jiggle, making sure that it was unlocked. The fact that the door moved showed that it was, in fact, open. And she had actually done it right. It would be easy to think that after almost a year, she'd be used to this, but she really wasn't. She doubted that she'd ever be.

She darted back into the chair, spinning it lightly. Door was open, so now it was just...back to the usual grind. She could look over at the commissions, and most of them had been saved from when the shop on Beacon grounds had burned.

There was a thick pile of papers in the folder behind the counter, of all the various commissions that she'd gotten. A few of them she glanced over for a second, before tossing into the 'talk to the owner about' later. Most of them were about things that were flat out not possible. One wanted a sword that shot sword beams, like that one game. That was what he wanted for his ranged option.

Actually...now that she thought about it, it was probably possible. She'd have to create a hardlight shield around the blade itself, and use hardlight dust to create a projection of the sword, using the user's swing to actively project it.

It'd be easier to just use aura waves, but according to Qrow that was a waste of aura. But...yeah, she could do that instead. She put that into the 'look into' pile, scribbling a few notes on it to make sure she remembered her thoughts on it.

And this one wanted an exploding axe head. Easy enough, but then they wanted it to be able to be reconstituted. Red dust, followed with attracted gravity dust? Maybe if she used a gauntlet, she could create a magnet in the gauntlet, allowing them to freely throw the axe, letting it explode on contact, before the pieces come back together in their hand?

With dust alone, it was basically magic. She blinked; that's what dust actively was, wasn't it? The power of the elements, in their hand.

She was knocked out of her reverie, and her internal dialogue about how these weapons would work as the door opened, the brilliant yellow hair and build of her dad walking in.

Taiyang was a tall man, thickly built and extremely strong. He'd been the one to help her get this place up and running, giving her enough money to survive the first three months of rent, the security deposit, and convince Qrow to give up some of his weapons for her stock. She'd been able to either remake the ones that she'd sold or just give them back in the case that she hadn't sold them. After all, a crow liked their shinies.

"Hey Rubes," her dad said as he walked in. "Just by yourself today?" he asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, I figured that so close to the end of the Vytal Festival that both Lilac and Jasper deserved a break, and this was the first day I didn't have to deal with insurance forms," she answered, hanging her head at the barest mention of the darn things.

What was worse is that it wasn't her first claim, either. She'd been robbed by Torchwick in the first three, four months of the shop's existence. And then his protege, Neo, had done the same thing six months later.

She'd stolen the Sundered Rose Copy that she'd made, a copy of her mother's weapon from memory. Cinder had since finished it off, melting it down to slag.

Cinder had a lot to pay for, but having her plans sabotaged by a sixteen year old girl was probably going to be one of the best outcomes she'd have gotten.

"That's nice of you. It's looking like a nice day out here for basically the last day. You want to come out and spend it with Yang and me?" her dad asked.

"I'd like to," Ruby answered honestly, "but I don't trust Zwei to watch the shop by himself. Much. Mostly because I think he'd probably go and fill up his food bowl by himself again and again."

Dad laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like him. Well, maybe I'll get Yang in here around lunch then, and we can spend it together then."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" Ruby grinned. "It's good to see that you've both let that dinner last year drop out of your minds."

Dad froze for a moment. "Right," he said quietly. "That dinner. Yeah that's...totally behind us," he answered a bit too quickly to be honest. "Yep, completely behind us. Not thinking about it at all."

Ruby stared at him in disbelief. "You forgot about it, didn't you?" she asked with a hidden smirk.

He nodded. "Yep. Completely forgot about it. Think Yang forgot too?"

Ruby's scroll went off with another message, this time from Yang. It read 'Think Dad forgot about that dinner yet?'

Ruby showed it to him with a grin. "Nope but yeah, I think she did," Ruby answered.

As her dad left, she gave another quick look at the scroll for other messages. There was the one from Ozpin, short and fairly simple. 'Bullhead caught leaving Darklands. Careful Ruby, I fear Salem is on the move.'

Oh. Yeah, that was a good message then, Ozpin. She'd be careful.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

An Average Day

Ruby spun around in her chair for a bit. Middle of the day, with Lilac working the majority of the counter, which left her to focus on design work for the commissions that she'd gotten during the Vytal Festival Tournament. The cat faunus was leaning heavily against the glass countertop, one hand absently petting Zwei on his doggy bed there, the corgi absolutely loving the attention.

The shop was quiet, not that Ruby was expecting anything but. It was technically the end of the Vytal Festival, but because of the Incursion most of the other sales had kept going, and the Vale Community Board allowed it, which was apparently rare enough that Ruby felt that she, too, should keep her own sale going.

Half off all ammunition if she had it in stock, and five percent off dust prices. Mostly because the dust prices were still skyrocketed high thanks to Roman Torchwick and the White Fang. But because it was after the end of the Festival, that also meant Beacon was out, as were the three smaller combat schools. And most Hunters didn't like getting up early if they didn't have to.

Ruby knew that she was one of the rare ones.

"What do you think of this," Ruby asked looking at a particularly difficult looking commission. They were asking for an axe that connected to a chain, allowing it to be a small chain whip axe, featuring a larger rifle in the base. "Red dust for the ignition in the base, but with gravity dust for the axehead, so it could do the same as this one, and blow itself up and then reconfigure itself."

"Looks and sounds complicated," Lilac answered easily. "He wants it to connect to a chain. You don't need to make a dust chain if it has a physical chain, right?"

"No, but this way anything the chain hits it'll actually do something to, rather than just wrap them up. This way it'll wrap them up and do something!"

"He may not want a dust chain. He may not know how to care for it," Lilac pointed out.

Ruby grumbled. "That's fair. It's not that hard though. I'll give it an idea and toss it to him, but warn him of the price increase," she answered, writing it down on the paper before putting it into the 'think about later' pile.

She pulled out another one, sighing as she looked at it. "Oh boy, here's gonna be a fun one. A pole that disconnects itself with shotguns in the middle and can be acted a nunchucks."

Lilac stared at her for a moment. "Isn't that just a copy...?"

"Of Sun's weapon from the tournament, Ruyi Bang and Jingu Bang? Yeah," Ruby nodded. "That's just plain derivative. Easy to make work though. Plain dust for ignitions, using shot put for the ammunition so they get multiple shots per actual firing, hardened steel on the outside."

"How many of those were copies of weapons from the Tournament?" Lilac asked after a moment. "I didn't really look at them after I filed them."

"The earliest ones were the more original ones. The ones during the Tournament days, ooh boy. Lots of clones," Ruby said. "Easy to make, nowadays, considering I still have access to the blueprints, but not very thought provoking. Although there was Tri-Hard."

"...Tri-Hard?" Lilac was struggling not to giggle. "Somebody named their weapon that?"

Ruby nodded, grinning. "Yeah, Neptune Vasilias. I don't think he got the pun for a while, but by then it was already on the official paperwork. Hence, Tri-Hard!"

"Neptune...he was...?"

"The blue haired guy on Sun's team," Ruby clarified. "He was the guy with the electric dust on his weapon in three different voltages, accidentally nicked Penny Polendina on stage with the wrong wattage?"

"Right. You know, there's some conspiracy theories that she's a robot."

Ruby waved her hand a bit. "I wouldn't believe it. The girl's not normal, sure, but none of us actually are. She has aura, she fights Grimm. Walks like a person, talks like a person, sounds like one to me."

That said, her weapon, Floating Array, was conspicuously tied to an outside power source and an outside processing unit, so if she was a robot, then it was a good disguise. And really, Penny had been a lot more socially competent than a robot would be. At least, according to the science fiction moves she watched when Yang and Taiyang weren't telling her what she could and couldn't watch. Granted, most of the time it was because horror movies kept her up with nightmares, but it was really hard to beat the living nightmare she'd lived through.

"That makes sense," Lilac said, leaning back onto the counter. "Pass me that X-Ray and Vav would you? The latest one?" she asked.

Ruby glanced over at it, giving a heartfelt sigh as she grabbed it and tossed it down the counter. "You know, you are supposed to be working at work time," Ruby grinned, pulling one of the original issues for herself. It had been a long time since she'd read any comics.

Entertainingly, Jaune had yet to see them. And apparently, according to Yang, he had a massive comics collection that was only rivaled by Blake's book collection. They had, or at least Yang had, decided to call it the "Smutty Comic Collection" to see how red both Jaune and Blake could become.

"I know, but I already did the dusting for today, lunch isn't for another hour, no one else in here, the dust has already been counted, and we're still waiting on deliveries for ammunition."

"I was teasing," Ruby giggled. "I know there's not much going on," she said, right before the electronic bell that she had installed went off, signaling that the door was opening.

Or rather, that someone had peeked in, and decided to turn around. "Huh. That was weird," Ruby muttered.

Strong arms were suddenly flung around her chest. "Ruby!" Yang called out, pulling her tightly off the chair and hugging her close. "Aww, what's my favorite sister doing now!" she said. Ruby had the strangest thought that she was holding her this tight on purpose, because now she couldn't quite reach the floor and why was Yang's grip tightening up!?

"Yang! Yang put me down!" Ruby cried out as she realized that her very strong sister wasn't going to be letting go anytime soon. Her legs wiggled in the air. "Yang!" she shouted again.

She heard Lilac giggling from down below. "Lilac! Do something! Yang!" Ruby cried out again before Yang finally put her down. Her sister had a giant grin on her face, not even looking winded.

"Aww Rubes! You know I'd never let anything hurt you!" Yang said. "Besides, you were barely a couple of inches off the ground. Even if I did, you wouldn't get hurt!"

"Doesn't mean it didn't surprise me. What are you doing here?"

"Why wouldn't I be here?" Yang asked in retort, looking around. "This is where my favorite sister is, and I had the day off from Beacon!"

"It's also only eleven in the morning," Ruby pointed out.

Yang blinked. "Wait, seriously? Darn it Blake...she woke me up early when she got out of bed to go reading in the living room."

"And you thought it was a half decent time, so you took a shower and now you wandered down here?"

"Yeah, just about!" Yang smirked. "So, anything fun going on? Ooh, what're those," she asked, pointing to the commissions on the counter. "And when did you get comics?"

"You've known about those for a few weeks! Remember, you came in a while ago and asked the same thing word for word?" Ruby retorted, getting a sheepish smile from the blonde. "As for those, the commissions I got for unique new weapons for the Vytal Festival Tournament."

"Any fun ones? Maybe you can give Ember Celica a glow-up!"

"You'd have to pay me," Ruby grinned. "I'm not doing that for free anytime soon," she said, specifically not saying that she'd come up with about three different upgrades to the bracelet shotguns when she was working on them up on Amity.

The one time that Yang had gotten hit, and it was right in the shotgun bracelet gauntlets. It wasn't quite as bad as the time that Jaune had somehow hit them directly into Pyrrha's weapon, Miló and Akoúo̱, in which she'd had to basically rebuild the entire things from scratch, but it was pretty close.

"Aww, come on, you know you're my favorite!"

"I'm your only," Ruby answered. "And there's nothing too fun. Also, did you know Neptune's weapon was called the Tri-Hard?"

It took a moment before Yang started to giggle lightly, before it upgraded to a chuckle, before she bent over her knee. "Ha! That sounds hilarious. Let me guess, Sun named it? That sounds like something he or I would do."

Ruby shrugged, smiling broadly. "I have no idea who named it, but that's what's on the official paperwork. You can look through them if you'd like, nothing confidential in them."

"I thought you usually took confidentiality to the extreme," Lilac said from the side. "I know you never let me look at those."

"You never wanted to!" Ruby answered. "If you'd told me, of course I'd let you. Here's a fun one," she said, pulling one from the 'probable ideas' pile, sliding it over to Yang.

It took her only a moment to glance through it. "This is a copy of that sword from that one game, isn't it?" Yang asked after a second. "Is there a sketch?"

"Third page, back side."

She turned to it. "Yeah, there it is," she said, tracing her fingers around the pommel and hilt design. "That's almost copy for copy. How many of these are that unoriginal?" Yang asked.

Ruby threw her head back. "Most of them! Most of them are like that! What happened to originality!? Where's the Ember Celica's, the Gambol Shrouds, the Crescent Roses!?"

"You can't tell me Crescent Rose was original, Ruby."

"It was totally original!"

"It was based off Harbinger and Sundered Rose!" Yang retorted. "I remember when you went through the initial designs, trying to mix both Mom and Qrow's stuff."

Ruby looked to the side. "I thought it was cool," she said quietly.

"It was! But that doesn't mean that it was original," Yang said. "And hey, maybe they want copies of these things because they liked how we fought. Besides, did Blake ever tell you how Gambol Shroud was made?"

"It looked like the original was just random parts of whatever she could find," Ruby answered.

Yang nodded. "That's exactly it. They couldn't find good steel out in the wilds," Yang said, sending a quick look over to Lilac. Ruby nodded. Lilac probably had no idea that Blake had been in the White Fang, and that wasn't Ruby's secret to tell.

Wilds, in this case, meant while in the White Fang.

"And then there's Jaune," Ruby said, thinking it over. "With the classic Crocea Mors. Not so classic anymore. I'm just asking where's the originality?"

"A few of these are fairly tame," Yang said, looking over a few more. "When are you next planning on forging?"

"Her next day's in about a week," Lilac answered, glancing at the calendar. "I can only remember that because those are the only days that both Jasper and I were scheduled."

"That's handy," Yang smirked. Ruby started to leap up, getting only a sly grin from her sister.

Lilac shrugged. "Eh, not really, I can barely stand working with him."

"Heh, don't tell Blake that. She'll put you two in as the stars of a story," Yang grinned.

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know she wrote. I know she read a lot. She was really upset that Tukson left abruptly."

"Tukson was the only one who stocked her favorite series," Yang shrugged. "She's been trying to find the next in the series. So as a way to get that same escapism, she took up writing."

"You mean Roaring of the Sun?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. "You're talking that Ninjas of Love series, right? I have it, she can borrow it for a bit."

"Oh don't tell me you read that series too," Lilac said, her tail lowered as she covered her eyes.

"Ha! She doesn't like anyone to know but she loves that series," Yang answered for her. "And she'd love that, by the way," she turned to Ruby.

Ruby rolled her eyes. She was sixteen. At least Yang wasn't trying to tease her about reading smut anymore. She burst into her Semblance, heading up the stairs to grab the book.

Ruby vs. Grades

Ruby glanced back at the clock. Lilac had gone home nearly an hour ago, but the shop would be open for another hour. Why she decided to make her employees schedule so weird, she didn't know, but she was going to curse out her younger self for doing just that!

Maybe it was because the hardest part of the shop wasn't closing but opening...so she could have someone on dusting duty and the other on the dust duty.

Yeah, that was probably it. It would make sense, because her day started long before she opened the shop and ended after she closed it.

Her scroll buzzed, with a message from Blake. It was mostly just an image of a hug, and a picture of the book. Ruby rolled her eyes, but gave a soft smile as she sent back a quick text that she could return it at anytime, that Ruby had already read it and they could hang out one day to talk about it.

Zwei was in the arena, battling against small targets that looked like tiny little beowulves. He was surprisingly quick, which Ruby guessed she shouldn't have been surprised about because really, his aura was unlocked and he knew how to use it.

The doorbell rang, making Ruby glance up. "Welcome to Summer's Weapon...oh hi Dad."

Taiyang grinned as he walked in, his eyes on Zwei. "That's all I get? Just a 'oh hi Dad'," he said. "Off by yourself today?"

"Nah, Lilac left a while ago."

"Ah. How much longer do you have them on?" he asked, walking around the counter. He glanced over at Zwei as the corgi let out an adorable little howl and stepped on one of the small beowulves. "And should he really be doing that? It's gonna give him a complex."

"He already has one," Ruby answered, rolling her eyes. "But he's such a cute widdle corgi, yes who's the best? Yes he is..." she said, devolving back into the baby talk she liked to use on him.

Her dad looked at the calendar, right next to the bathroom door. "Only a couple of more weeks though huh?" he asked, seeing the small red note that said, 'Lilac and Jasper's last day!'

"Yeah. With the Vytal Festival over, things have started to slow down, and they want to have time to hang out with their friends," Ruby explained. "And they're getting bored a lot more frequently now."

"So then what're you going to do?" Taiyang asked. "Unless you think you can keep the shop running permanently?"

Ruby shook her head, "No, this'll probably be its last year. A good run, but I'll need to focus on Beacon. And the whole magic thing."

"Speaking of Beacon, how's your homework for Signal going?" Dad asked slyly. Ruby blinked for a long moment, before she realized that it was true, she still did have homework for Signal.

Oh crap she had homework for Signal. "Wait I got it just wait a moment I'll be right back with it I swear I didn't forget I just didn't get around to it I'll be right back!" Ruby said, hoping that he caught what she was saying as she burst into her Semblance upstairs.

She felt the maiden's powers start to awaken too, and she was almost hesitant to find out what emotion 'panic' would bring out. No, she'd be fine, it was just homework! She'd passed last year, and that was despite the fact she hadn't shown up.

Apparently the teachers at Signal for very forgiving for obvious truancy. Then again, so was Vale as a whole, based on the way that she owned and operated her own weapons shop. She grabbed the giant folder on the counter, covered with the remains of a pot pie she'd made earlier, and ran, practically flying downstairs.

Dad was still there, watching as Zwei continued to stomp over the fake Grimm. His clothes ruffled from the wind. "You forgot, huh?" he smirked.

"No, I didn't forget!" Ruby called back. "I just...uh..."

"You forgot."

Ruby growled lowly, and Taiyang rolled his eyes before watching Zwei again. "I'll stay here until you finish it. If you have questions, ask. I already know you're up to date on math and engineering."

Those two weren't even Taiyang's classes. How did he know what her grades were? He probably looked at the big grade book ages ago. He taught combat class, and she knew she could pass that without a problem.

"What about combat class?" she asked.

Dad shrugged. "Eh, I haven't seen you fight in a while. No pass," he grinned.

"Come on!" Ruby called out. "I fought Uncle Qrow! And I got him down to forty percent aura from ninety five! I almost did damage to Pyrrha! I fought Cinder!"

"And I wasn't there for any of that except Qrow," Dad said. "So you'll have to prove yourself to me then," he finished.

Really, she'd done more than 'almost did damage' to Pyrrha. With half of the Maiden's powers, she'd actually got Pyrrha down to...what was it, seventy percent aura? Maybe sixty, if she was lucky. But more importantly, she'd got it down to where Pyrrha was enjoying herself.

What's worse is that she knew her dad was teasing her but darn it it certainly didn't feel it at times. It felt like he was frustrated and just taking it out on her. That frustration lashed out at her, and she felt the wind start to bubble up. "Not now," she murmured as she grabbed the first sheet. Math homework. Easy enough. Most of it was just busywork at this point. She knew what she was doing, the teachers knew what she was doing, she was already accepted into Beacon, she just had to wait.

"You gonna calm down there?" Dad asked after a moment. His voice was deeper, as if he was shouting. Ruby glanced up, seeing that the wind was starting to get a bit crazy.

As in it was starting to threaten to pick him up and deposit him on the other side of the store. Actually...could she do that? Could she do that to herself?

Could she learn to fly!?

She was going to have to run the numbers. And do some experiments. She was going to have fun with this. But wait, first, math homework.

Fortunately it was, asides from some of the harder difficulty problems, fairly easy. Not stuff she'd really have to use in real life scenarios unless she went into more dust heavy studies. Like quadratics and such. She still didn't quite see a use for those when she had basic math in engineering. And make no mistake, she was an ace at engineering.

"Ruby? Turn off the wind?" Taiyang asked from the side.

The paper in her hands crumpled a bit as the wind blew around harder. Ruby looked up as she finished the last problem. "But I thought you said you've never seen me fight, so how do you know I can turn off the wind?" she asked, grinning.

"Oh ha ha," Dad rolled his eyes as he jumped a foot in the air, taking longer to come back down that he did to go up. In that time he'd moved almost five feet back. "Seriously, I think it's starting to affect the dust back here," he said, looking towards the glass counter in the front.

Instantly the wind vanished as Ruby popped over there, checking over the crystals. "No, no, I didn't mean it my pretties, you're fine right?" she asked to the dust crystals.

The dust crystals, being inanimate objects, did not respond.

"Whew. That's a harsh wind right there. What else can you really do? I knew intellectually that you had the powers, but...I've never seen them."

"Most just elemental stuff, I think," Ruby answered. "At least, that's all Ozpin wants to instruct me to do. And even then his instructions were akin to 'you'll learn in time'."

"Sounds like Oz. Never straightforward when you want him to be. He still bugging you?"

"Not as much. I think he realizes that he's screwed up by trying to get me to Beacon so quick. I know he just wants me safe, but-"

"I think he wants control," Taiyang shrugged. "It's like that thing that he gave to us to guard. You know, before your mom..."

"Where is that thing anyways? Last I checked Yang and I kept using it as a coaster before it disappeared," Ruby smirked. Dad grinned at her.

"Oh, I threw it into the attic. I figured if anyone comes snooping around, they aren't going to look there anytime soon. And how did you manage to use as a coaster? It has a hole in the bottom."

"There's a hole in the top, and a cup fits perfect right through there. But you have to turn it on its side," Ruby admitted. "Control sounds about right. Also, does this sound good?" she asked, reaching for the engineering paper. "'To determine the density of the steel, when forging the metal one has to smelt it down upon the impurities burning, carefully lifting them out of the resultant soup,'" Ruby quoted.

"It's a paper on forging."

"Yep."

"To a weaponsmith."

"Yep," Ruby said, popping the 'p'.

"I think you can pretty much say whatever you want, Ms. Howler isn't going to care. She'll take it as gospel anyways. How wrong is that?" Dad asked.

"Eh, not wrong just...not entirely right," Ruby smirked. "There's a lot more to making steel than that."

"Isn't it just iron and charcoal?"

Ruby glared at him, and he must have realized that what he said was wrong. It was so wrong it was hard to put it into words. It wasn't just 'iron and charcoal'. It was iron and carbon. But it had to be carbon in a very specific amount to add to the strength of the metal. Iron was weak. Steel was strong.

Okay, that was a lie. Iron was strong in its own way. No one should ever make pure iron though, because iron tended to oxidize. Unless she added some other element, generally chromium, into the steel to create a layer of protection on it.

Which had the added benefit of preventing rust.

"Now for regular language," Dad said, hovering over her shoulder. "Think you'll train in the magic thing, or just keep the weaponsmithing?"

"Probably both," Ruby admitted as she growled, staring at the page. "I've come up with a few ideas that I want to try, but I don't know how to go about it yet."

"Like what?"

"Imbuing magic into a weapon," Ruby said. "Imagine a weapon that doesn't need dust to do what it does, but it's just an inherent ability of the weapon itself! No more gravity dust to do weird magnetic shenanigans, but it's literal magic! Teleporting hammers, swords that can't be drawn except by certain people without a physical lock!"

"Teleporting hammers?"

"One of the commissions wants a teleporting hammer," Ruby said, patting the file to her side. "I'm going to have to tell her why it's impossible, along with other impossibilities like it giving someone the power to shoot lightning bolts."

"Why not use electric dust?"

"Oh no, the lightning bolt thing is easy. But she wanted it to be able to give her the power of lightning bolts. That's not possible. Going from the weapon though, yeah that parts easy. Unless Semblance."

"Or Maiden."

Ruby froze for a moment. That was a good point. That description was almost word for word what someone had wanted from the Maiden's power. She put aside her homework, glad to have any reason to not be doing it, as she looked through the commission pile.

The commission form was something that she'd come up with after her experience with Jaune. She had noted the bare basics, but it was really up to the person to describe what it was they wanted. It's why there were four pages to each form.

The first page was the basics, the second was a budget breakdown showing what kind of estimate they can generally get, and the third was more information on dust and ammunition types. The fourth page was a small sketch of the thing.

Ruby grabbed it, before she sighed. "Okay, good, it wasn't Cinder," she muttered as she put it down. "Just someone worse."

"Who's worse than Cinder?"

"Nora Valkyrie," Ruby grinned as she showed hm the form. The name was clearly written, along with plenty of little additives that was mostly just things like 'boom!' and 'Pow!' and other things the hyperactive one was known for. "She'll know."

"You'd think she'd be happy with Magnhild," Dad said as he looked over it. "And the design is exactly the same as Magnhild."

Ruby glanced over it. "Oh...so it is," she muttered. Well, unless she wasn't happy with Magnhild...but she was an explosives expert...maybe Ruby would have to call her out anyways someday.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Breaking Even

Ruby laid on her couch, Zwei sleeping peacefully at his side. After the rough day he had, ruff in her mind, full of stomping all over virtual Grimm and running rampant throughout the shop with only a few hours of petting from Lilac, it was no wonder he was tired. She was tired too, honestly, both physically and mentally. She'd had to hurry through her homework, just to give it straight to her dad to give back to Signal. She couldn't believe that she'd almost forgotten all that.

And so now here she was, in her pajamas laying on the bed. A paper plate was on the counter, having already been licked clean by Zwei but had the small remains of her pork chops and rice. And she had leftovers for the rest of the week! Score! She wouldn't have to bake for a while.

The TV was on, although Ruby wasn't really watching it. It was mostly on for background noise, as she casually created some wind to gently close and latch the windows, before unlatching them and opening them as quietly as possible. She probably shouldn't be trying that as tired as she was, but she figured if she could do it while she was tired, she could do it on coffee too.

The windows slammed shut, and Ruby gave a small groan as she turned off the maiden's powers. She didn't want to break her windows by practicing magic on them. But really, how else was she supposed to practice gentle manipulation? She'd gotten pretty good at it too, but she was still fairly far from being able to fly.

That was her new end goal. And then she wanted to try other things. Creating magic weapons, or heck, even being able to transform herself into a wolf? Yeah, that'd be cool.

One hand lazily pet Zwei as she looked towards the TV. Some news was on about some other attack by Roman Torchwick. Not a dust shop, for the first time in literal months, but a gambling den, and he made it off with, according to the news, nearly eighty thousand lien. That had to be enough to pay even his bills for a bit.

But it did prove that Torchwick was still around. Still a danger. And that meant Neo was still around too, and that meant that Ruby had to keep up her guard. Last time Neo had gotten in, Ruby had gotten thrashed. Granted, she wasn't nearly as defenseless now as she was back then. But honestly, Neo was ridiculously capable. She'd have to train against Yang and Pyrrha for weeks to come up close.

Actually, next time Yang was here, she'd have to spar against her. Really see where she was. But she'd have to use some other weapon, seeing as how Crescent Rose had been brutally murdered. Melted, actually, but it still hurt Ruby's heart just the same. She picked up her scroll in her other hand, and started to scroll through her messages. She didn't have many, but it wasn't as if she expecting any. She just didn't...she just didn't want to do this.

It was time to check her accounts and to balance her books.

She usually liked this part, because it was just math. And she could check it frequently enough that she wasn't worried about not being able to pay bills or Lilac and Jasper. She always kept a good amount in there for those slow weeks.

But this was after the sale. After the Vytal Festival had fully ended. Which meant that now everything was done, and it was time to see how good, or badly, she'd done.

The majority of her income was through dust sales. Dust was a constant, and it was why she'd only managed to negotiate it down five percent. Most other dust shops didn't even do that. For a long time, she'd thought she'd been undercutting them on accident until Jasper had mentioned that they had lower prices than her even after the sale price. It was mostly just beneficial because she also sold ammunition, and she knew her dust well.

She'd spent an exorbitant amount on dust in the months upcoming to the Festival, and it seemed to have paid off well. Nearly a twenty percent return on the dust in total. Only because she could gauge the dust purity a lot better than sometimes even the SDC could.

Well that part made her feel better at least. It would take her time to figure out exactly which purities were most popular, and to stock those the next time the Festival came to Vale. But really, by then she wouldn't be working in Summer's Weapon Shop. Next time she'd have been a Huntress for multiple years.

And wasn't that a weird thought? She'd told her dad that when next Beacon accepted registrations rolled around, which would be in...what, six months? Ten months? She'd have to look at Yang's schedule next time she was around. But then when Beacon rolled around and she started attending, the shop wouldn't be.

And that thought, now that she had it, kinda scared her. She was more than halfway through the shop's lifetime. And yet it had taken everything she had to get it to where it was. And there was still more to do. More commissions to make, and more importantly, more weapons to find and create.

She had to toss those ideas out of her head. She knew, going into it, that the shop wasn't going to last forever. It had been a spur of the moment decision, created because of some old Valean laws that prevented underage attendance of Beacon. If they weren't already part of a combat school. The shop wasn't going to be permanent. It was good while it lasted, and it would last a long time, but she wasn't going to be a shopkeeper forever. She was going to be 'just' Ruby eventually. Not shopkeep Ruby.

The next greatest amount on the books were the ammunition types. Most people preferred the smaller varieties, even if they had less stopping power than the bigger ones. The bigger ones weighed a lot more, so they could carry a lot less. Not to mention that some ammunition sizes were more useful for different sizes of Grimm. Small weapons fire on an ursa? Fine.

Small weapons fire on a goliath? No.

Large weapons fire on a goliath? The bigger the better. Large weapons fire on something small, like those wasp Grimm that she was sure she knew the name of...Lancers! That was it, they were called lancers. Large weapons fire on lancers? Nope.

She knew that other teams divvied out who carried what types of ammunition in general. Some, like Team CFVY, preferred their 'bigger is better when you have a minigun that can spawn as many as you want' methodology. Others, like Team SILV, actually did utilize their small weapons fire moreso than others.

Actually, did Team Silver have any major heavy hitters? Nora, certainly, but Weiss was more support than she was up in front. Same with Lie Ren and Cyril. They had one. Compare that to Team PABY, who had three of the darn things, in Pyrrha, Yang, and Jaune.

Ammunition types were generally consistent, and she got them at a discount if she bought in bulk. Which she had, but she'd also put it on a much bigger sale, for obvious reasons, and came out with a fifteen percent return on that one. Those numbers alone could keep the shop afloat for about two months. Combine that with the dust return? She was sitting pretty for the next six. And that was after paying both Jasper and Lilac.

Speaking of, she needed to get their pay set out. She had given them a promised amount, which she thought was pretty normal for other employers around her. Lilac certainly hadn't complained, and Jasper had just given her a raised eyebrow. Which could have meant anything, coming from him. But she took it to mean that it was a decent amount, considering that neither of the two were dealing with any training of the customers, that was all her. She had them mostly on administration stuff, or checking.

With their current schedules, and neither of them had missed a day so far although that might have been likely to change, that earned them...Ruby's eyebrow rose. That was surprisingly low. Right, she had to pay tax on it so they didn't have to. That did make things worse for her, but whatever, she'd take it. They basically saved the shop during the Vytal Festival.

And during the Breach. Wait, would that count as hazard pay? Shoot, she'd never had to calculate hazard pay before. "What's current rate for hazard..." she muttered, scrolling through articles of the amounts. An extra twenty percent for each 'hour' of hazard pay, apparently was the normal amounts in Vale.

That seemed oddly low still. What was she forgetting? They weren't working overtime, and their hours were set up to only be around ten each day, four days a week...wait, wasn't there a salary charge? Payroll was hard. This wasn't the first time she'd done it but putting it into the books was...how much had she actually paid the two? She should start with that, and see how much extra the two needed to be paid. That's what this was all about, checking her previous work.

Wasn't this something that an auditor did instead? Why was she doing this again? Oh right, because she needed to know. She re-checked everything again, not at all surprised when it came out much higher than it did previously.

She stared at the final number. That seemed much more appropriate for how much she felt she'd paid them, but it wasn't quite what her original calculations put it out to be. Oh, she hadn't taken out taxes from their pay. Well, she'd have to fix that before tax season starts in another week.

It'd take a neat bite out of her account, based on these factors, but she could do it. And it'd give a handy little raise to Jasper and Lilac. Perfect, win win for everyone around! Except her account, but it was the shop's account and not technically hers.

Now that that part was settled, came the other things, the small expenses and incomes, the ones that would really take a while.

Ruby groaned as she threw her head back. And this was just for the Vytal Festival, why were there nearly five hundred records? Were there any others that she could break down into bigger groups? She didn't have to do nearly five hundred records in her head. Her scroll would explode, to say nothing for her head.

"It's the small things Zwei...it's always the small things," she said aloud as she glanced over to the TV. She was expecting to see a re-run of the news, only to find that it was a lot later than she was expecting. Instead some old sit-com was on, the TV occasionally giving off the outdated laugh track that went whenever the characters did something. Anything.

It laughed when they talked, it laughed when they tripped, it laughed when they ran around screaming. It laughed when they walked. It wasn't even a particularly silly walk, either.

"Focus, Ruby! Focus!" she said to herself, changing the channel to something else. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was probably some old music video or documentary. Something boring. Although when music videos were boring she didn't know.

She glanced down at her scroll, still with the accursed numbers up, before she massaged her head and nose lightly. She had over five hundred records to put in, and make sure that everything was as it should be.

She barely got through ten before her scroll flipped from her hand, a small snore coming from her mouth as she fell asleep on the couch.

Flyers

Zwei was a dog with his aura unlocked, Ruby knew. And what that meant, Ruby knew, is that he could go really fast, and needed a lot of exercise. He needed special meals to help keep his health up, because his aura burned through energy quickly. Dad had a vet on speed dial for the puppy, seeing as how they needed a specialized vet for the shenanigans that Zwei could do.

What that also meant was that when Ruby took him out for walkies, it was less her walking him, and more him walking her.

If she hadn't had a speedy Semblance and the maiden's powers it's quite likely she would flown far away by now. "Zwei! Slow down!" Ruby called out as he rushed past the same tree four times in just as many minutes.

When Zwei had learned that he could use his aura to accelerate to speeds comparable to her, she didn't know, but that treadmill she'd bought for him to help Jasper walk the dog had already been worn out, so it had to be at some point. The corgi turned and gave her a sarcastic bark, as if saying for her to keep up.

And she was, somewhat with great difficulty. It was great training though, if she had to be honest, making sure that the wind kept up her own speed comparable to Zwei and she just thought that maybe that was also why Zwei was so fast because he too was using the wind to help him so why was she still doing it!?

"Fine!" She called out as Zwei zigged instead of zagged and almost tore off her shoulder. It was a good thing she'd been doing her aura training for the last several weeks, even after Cinder's fight, because otherwise she would have ran out of aura significantly faster than she would have otherwise. She focused on the feeling of the wind, pulling it back from pushing her forward, and using it to pull her backward instead, reversing it's direction. The trees around the park started to stop their shaking, and immediately started shaking the other way.

It was a good thing she was doing this in the morning when no one was around, otherwise they'd probably be wondering why the weather report was so wrong, Ruby admitted.

The maiden's powers were neat but subtle they were not.

And with the wind pushing on her, and pushing on Zwei in an attempt to slow down, she remember one other vital engineering point; wind resistance. Unfortunately for her, she also realized that Zwei was much smaller, and thus didn't have nearly as much wind resistance as the person next to him summoning the wind in the first place.

He ran off towards the next tree in the line, forcing Ruby to use her Semblance to be able to catch up to him. "Zwei, darn it, don't do that!" she shouted at him as he dragged her along by the leash.

She'd gotten one of those fancy leashes that had could stretch for so many feet, not that it mattered because Zwei could overextend it in only about ten seconds if he was trying. And right now, he really wanted to get to that tree. It wasn't even his favorite tree either. His favorite tree was in another dog park nearly ten blocks over, closer to central Vale. Why he wanted this tree in particular, she didn't know.

Finally he paused, and Ruby took the opportunity to turn off the wind completely. She glared at Zwei who gave a happy bark as he went to the bathroom. "Oh. That's why you wanted over here..." she murmured as she obediently looked away from him doing his duty.

She blinked, before she realized that it meant that Zwei wasn't using her actual bathroom. Which meant she didn't have to wait around for a while for him to come out in the middle of the day! It was a miracle! And the miracle was promptly shut down as she looked at the flyer pasted to the tree. She hadn't even realized that it was there before now. She grabbed at it a bit, before she stared down at Zwei. "You didn't even go, did you?" she accused.

Zwei gave another happy bark, starting to run around the tree much slower than he'd been before. Ruby sighed. "That answers that question, I guess," she murmured.

The flyer was a small one, just a simple page that had been stapled to the tree. "Job fair," Ruby looked at it. It was mostly for advertising purposes of the various jobs around in Vale. She'd never been to one. "I wonder if I should go to this one," Ruby muttered. "Either as an independent or just as part of the crowd," she finished, before she realized that Zwei had effectively tied her to the tree by running around in circles.

"Zwei, this isn't funny," Ruby said as her dog somehow managed to tie his leash together, get out of his collar, and was now promptly attempting to play with a stick that was almost four times his size. And she was stuck to a tree.

She had dozens of ways to get out of it, but really, she was kind of impressed that Zwei managed to do all that while she wasn't paying attention.

"Um...excuse me, miss, do you need assistance?" a voice said from behind the tree. He was a young boy, probably around Ruby's age if she had to guess. He had on thin glasses, with jogging clothes on as.

"Who, me?" Ruby asked as she wiggled her way out of more of the leash. "No, I got it, I just..." she muttered, before she used her Semblance to effectively go out of the top of the circle. "There! Got it!"

The boy's eyes widened. "You...you're Ruby Rose! The weaponsmith!" he grinned, his hair flopping around everywhere. He was wearing it long, having it reach down the bottom of his neck.

Ruby tilted her head. "Yeah, I am. How'd you know?"

"Because I recognize Zwei anywhere," the boy grinned, pointing to the dog in the middle of the park, currently deciding which park bench wast the best one to sit down on. Or lay down on. Ruby wasn't actually too sure.

Ruby gave a light laugh. "He does tend to be memorable, doesn't he?" she asked, giving a sight as the dog decided to lay down and sit down on the same time, with his back legs down but his front legs on the ground, stubby as they were.

"Yeah. I think I caught him once at my family's shop, we have a fish store over on the waterfront. He was buying...something," the boy laughed. "I forgot what, exactly, but it was still an entertaining transaction, that's for sure!"

"You own the Fish Plaza?" Ruby asked, trying to remember its name. It was one of the places not owned by the Old Man, but they often supplied him with their fish, according to him.

Needless to say, after Tukson's bookstore closed, it was Blake's favorite place bar none.

He shook his head, "No, my family does though. I work in there a lot. I think your store is the same."

"I think so," Ruby agreed, although internally she knew they weren't. She owned her shop, it was actually in her name now. She was completely on her own, asides from Dad occasionally popping in to take her homework back to Signal, or Uncle Qrow to come in and beat her up.

Speaking of, she should ask him to come by and beat her up.

That thought process needed some work. Made it sound a lot more violent than it really was. It was just them sparring and clashing heavy steel blades against each other, doing their best to attack and hurt each other. Nothing wrong with that!

She thought about that for a second. No, no, beating her up sounded better. And was much more accurate.

"Angie, no...hold on," the boy said, starting to run off another much taller dog that was running around the park. It was a golden fur color, only a little bit dimmer than Yang's hair, and was about double the height of Zwei.

Not that it stopped him from bothering her. "Zwei, leave her alone!" Ruby shouted as the corgi started to chase after the retriever. She couldn't tell what he was saying...which was another reason she wanted to learn that transformation magic because that would be so cool but she hadn't the time to try to learn yet.

Then the retriever turned around and flung Zwei high into the sky, waiting for him to land before she brushed her back paws against him and sauntering off.

Ruby caught up to the boy. "Aura awakened?" she guessed, leading to the boy to slowly nod. "Yeah, Zwei's the same."

"Explains a lot," he said. "Like how he survived that."

"Oh, he's done better," Ruby commented, "but he really does need to learn how to take a no."

The boy started blushing madly for some reason, which was just another sign to Ruby that some people were just weird. "Zwei, come on, race you back home!" Ruby shouted suddenly. "Winner gets a treat!" she smirked, knowing that it would work.

She turned back to the boy. "See you around. I never got your name though," she said, starting to run as she gave a quick wave.

"I'm Reed!" he shouted back. Reed and Angie. Zwei lined up behind her, running as fast as his little legs could carry him.

"Angie then huh?" Ruby asked with a sly smirk as they started to race. Zwei could easily keep up with her, and in fact was faster than her unless she really wanted to go.

He gave a bark and held his tongue out as he panted softly. "I suppose it's fitting that you'd find another aura-awakened dog of all things," Ruby commented softly. A small crinkling of paper distracted her to look down. That paper for the job fair was still in her hand. "Oh, shoot, I forgot to put this back," Ruby said, taking another look at it. Zwei was inching forward, but she had a secret weapon to make sure he didn't get any treats.

Should she go for it? Maybe she could host some classes or something for weaponsmithing and engineering in general. Or she should at least go herself, although her own plan was set in stone.

She was going to be going to Beacon. A little over a year from now. Not this incoming Initiation, as much as Ozpin wanted her to go, but the one after that.

But that didn't mean she couldn't at least go look. Who knows, maybe she'd find another hobby like weaponsmithing. Or just looking at weapons, really. That was why she'd started the whole thing, after all.

She turned the last street, not surprised to see Zwei about half a block ahead of her. Her cloak was spread behind her. She pocketed the job fair flyer, with a mental reminder to go put it back on the tree when she got the chance.

Finally she slowed down, seeing as how Zwei had made it to the door before her. He was growling at the door, trying to scratch his way in. "You figured out my little secret weapon huh?" Ruby grinned as she opened the lock using her scroll. She pushed him out of the way gently as she strolled on in, not at all surprised when Zwei gave a offended bark.

Ruby rolled her eyes as he darted to the bathroom door, just to make sure she couldn't use it herself. "Fine, Zwei, you'll get a treat anyways," Ruby commented as she reached under the counter, pulling out the small container.

Now all she had to do was wait for Jasper and make it through the day. She could do that.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Ruby vs. Ozpin

Ruby gave a few stretches, letting her shoulders hang loose for a moment before she tightened them up. Then came her legs, making sure that they were fully stretched out.

Jasper was at the counter, reading one of the many comics he'd come in for during the Vytal Festival Tournament. "You know, you of all people probably don't need to stretch," he commented idly, not looking up.

"You should always stretch before and after doing any kind of strenuous activity. Your dad makes you do it when forging, right?" Ruby asked, stretching out her shoulders again.

Just because she was mostly going to be spinning around didn't mean that she shouldn't be fully flexible. "No he doesn't. He just kind of says 'eh, stretch if you want kid. It'll make it hurt less'."

Ruby stopped and stared for a moment. "And...then you do it, right?"

"No?"

Ruby sighed. "You have to keep your stretches up, especially if you're in the same position for hours. You can't just assume your youth will save you."

"It's weird to hear you say youth. You're younger than I am," Jasper pointed out. "Is Beacon out still?"

"Nah, went into session again a few days ago. Initiation won't be for another week or two though," Ruby said easily, as her scroll started to buzz on the counter. Jasper went to reach for it, only for Ruby to have controlled the wind to bring it to her. "Ha, I'm getting that down," she said as she caught it. She fumbled for a moment before she solidified her hold. "Ha!"

"That's still weird," Jasper said. "A new Semblance just kind of coming out of nowhere? This isn't a windfall."

"You're trying too hard," Ruby commented as she looked at her scroll. A message from Yang, showing a picture of team PABY as they went into a bullhead. "Huh, PABY's got a mission," she said idly. Blake in particular was looking rather pensive, off into the distance with her eyes narrowed.

"Oh, where to?"

"Yang didn't say," Ruby answered, tossing her scroll back onto the counter. She guided the wind to let it down gently, smirking as it hit with the lightest thud. Then the wind bothered Zwei, who looked up from his nap on the pillow, seeing the scroll there, and quietly bopped it off as if he was a cat.

Jasper chuckled. "Zwei, you're not a cat. Stop taking cat naps," he said. He went around the counter to pick the scroll up, casually looking through it.

"You know, you probably shouldn't be looking through your boss' scroll," Ruby said without inflection as she finished her stretches. "Also, think twenty laps or thirty laps?"

"What, in a minute?" Jasper asked. "I say forty. Also, I wouldn't be but only if my boss had actually anything incriminating on here. Seriously, not even any photos of her being drunk."

"I don't drink," Ruby retorted as she felt her Semblance come alive. Small rose petals started to fall around her as she set up the arena using the main console. The hardlight walls went up, and a small 'racetrack' was formed.

Forty laps in a minute. She could do that. She summoned the wind at the same time as she launched into Semblance mode, starting to speed around the arena as fast as she could. "Yeah, and that's half the issue. Seriously you don't do much that's actually fun. I'm pretty sure I have a more fun life than you do," Jasper answered back. "When's the last time you cut loose, and just...stop caring what people thought about you?"

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.

"I'm cutting loose now aren't I?" Ruby asked as she kept count in her head, along with the quickly and rapidly rising number on her right.

"That's more like cutting your hamstrings than anything else," Jasper said caustically.

Twenty five. Twenty six. Twenty seven.

"I did my stretches first. This is just a warm up."

"That's the other half. You're either working or you're working. Tell you what, next time Lilac and I go out to drink, you're coming with us."

Thirty three. Thirty four, thirty five.

The hardlight walls let out a small klaxon warning, and Ruby started to slow herself down just in time for the walls to go down. "Darn, thirty six laps," Ruby said, breathing hard. "Not bad for a warm up, I guess."

"Warm up she says, going faster than even the fastest of Hunters can do. Yes, because that's a warm up," Jasper commented. "What do you say?"

"To what? I wasn't paying attention," Ruby admitted. Now that she had her blood flowing, she could really start to go to town. She grabbed a weapon off the shelf, giving it a normal look over as she glanced through it. No dust, no ammunition, a spike flail with exploding ballhead that put itself back together using small chains and lines.

She missed her Crescent Rose.

"To going out for drinks! It'll be fun, just us three. Maybe your sister if we can get her. And your girlfriend."

"Not my girlfriend, and I'm too young to drink," Ruby said instantly.

"Well yeah, but your basically a Huntress in training. They lower the age of drinking for you."

"I know for a fact that you are too, and you're not a Huntsman in training," Ruby retorted as she started up the training program. A small dummy made of hardlight straw came up behind her.

Then she thought better about it, and changed the program from dummies to Atlas robots, because apparently the program could do that one too.

"It's just a normal part of living. Every kid tries it at least once."

"I don't."

"But I bet your sister did," Jasper commented. "Come on, be like her for a bit. Live, I say! Live!" he started to shout.

The robot made a small beep, and she gave a sigh. She really didn't want to learn programming or coding, she was a forging smith! Not a...whatever it was that Penny used to maintain Floating Array. Some sort of specialized coding algorithm, probably. She smashed the robot into pieces, hearing it shatter underneath the steel ball. It reformed a few feet away, just far enough that Ruby had to step towards it and swing upwards. It wouldn't get a chance to fire.

"If I say I don't want to, Jasper, I don't want to. Besides, as much as Yang's a partier, she is in Beacon."

"And she's also responsible for the docks explosion, she had a small amount with the giant mech problem, she also-"

"You can stop now."

Jasper grinned. "Come on, it'll be fun. We can even do it here, if you'd like. Think of it as a way to celebrate our last days here."

This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea. This was a bad idea, this was a terrible idea-

"Sure, fine. On your last day then, after it's done," Ruby threw up her hand to deflect one of the robots fake bullets. It pinged off her aura with nary a glance, and she immediately focused her eyes on it and let it blow up in a bout of lightning.

"So now it's lightning too? What can't your new Semblance do?" Jasper asked. "It's a freaking comic coming to life. Is that you're going to do with it now? Basically allow you to leap tall buildings in a single bound-"

"No," Ruby answered deadpan as she smashed another two of the fake bots. "I'm not going to be doing any of that. I'm just going to be a Huntress, and be good at it-"

"Oh, I quite agree," Ozpin's voice said over the roar of the arena.

"Welcome to Summer's Weapon...shop...Mr...Ozpin?" Jasper started to say, getting more and more visibly confused at the tall man in the green overcoat.

Ruby quickly ran over to hit the pause button, letting the hardlight arena walls fall, along with all of the simulation. She took the mace that she'd been borrowing from and tossed it gently onto the weapon rack. "Professor Ozpin? What are you doing here?" she asked, hoping beyond hope that he wasn't about to ask right in front of someone. Regardless of the fact that Jasper was trustworthy, Ozpin's entire thing had been built on secrecy.

"Practicing with your new Semblance, I see," Ozpin said. "Always a good sign. Although I'm surprised to see you use it so...openly. I strongly suspected you would be training at night."

"To be fair to her, sir, it's dark in here at night. Easier to see the flashes," Jasper pointed out.

"Ah, yes, I suppose that's true."

"Also testing out other things too. And stretching a bit. Making sure I don't get too rusty," Ruby admitted. "But you can't here just for that."

"I am not, you are correct," Ozpin said easily. His cane hit the ground lightly, and once again Ruby wanted to take it apart so badly. He had called it the Long Memory. A sign of something beyond normalcy.

She wondered, then, how he'd had it made. What kind of dust it used or...he was the one in charge of the Maidens.

Had he made it with magic!?

That was so cool! She could make her own copy of the Long Memory and only call it the Short Memory actually that would be a terrible idea because then Yang would get it into her head that she was talking about height rather than the fact that Ozpin was really old although he only looked around twenty or so and...why was it called the Long Memory?

"I am here to once again appeal to see if you'd be willing to come to Beacon early," Ozpin offered again. "And, because I know your answer, if you'd be willing to assist in a spar."

"The answer's still no," Ruby answered, ignoring as Jasper's jaw dropped over at the counter, "but for the spar...sure. I know I'm going to lose, and I don't have Crescent Rose anymore, but that sounds fun."

"Yes, Ms. Rose. Yes you will," Ozpin chuckled as he tossed the Long Memory aside. "And because you are without your weapon, I too, will be without mine."

"So what brought this on? You're not the kind of person to spar with students. Or potential students."

"I am not. However, the events at the Incursion, against Cinder Fall, have made me realize that I have, in fact, gotten 'rusty' as you say. So I felt it high time to shake off that iron deposit."

Jasper gave a groan. "Is that what I sound like whenever I make those puns?"

"Worse!" Ruby shouted back as she grabbed the closest thing to a scythe she could think of. If she wasn't worried for Ozpin's safety, she could probably reforge the kusarigama into something with a longer shaft, but...that would be really hot. She couldn't focus the heat that much yet.

Instead she grabbed it, and hopped into the arena with an expectant grin. Ozpin gave her a simple smile, and walked in as well, letting the hardlight dust walls come up as Ruby gave the arena its variables.

"I didn't think you were that rusty, Professor," Ruby admitted. "Three...two...one..." she started.

As soon as she hit zero, Ozpin moved. He didn't just move his legs, but his entire body shifted as if he wasn't there. His closed fist almost hit the crook of her shoulder, and suddenly Ruby realized that she was, majorly, out of her league.

Still, she'd been through worse. She slammed upwards, not surprised at all as Ozpin simply wasn't there anymore. She felt a kick to the back of her knees, but rather than fall she went into her Semblance, appearing against the hardlight arena walls.

Only to have Ozpin already there, his leg kicking up just as quickly as Ruby could move hers. Abandoning her attack pattern, she dove straight down onto him in her Semblance, reforming just behind him. Ozpin's arm was already in the way, which only made it easier for Ruby as she slammed the kusarigama into his aura, not at all unexpectedly finding that he wasn't there.

Ozpin was fast.

Ruby felt one connect in her hips, and another on her back. She tried to go back into her Semblance mode, trying to get away from the onslaught, only for him to do what she had thought was impossible, and hit her out of her Semblance.

She'd legitimately thought that she was untouchable in her Semblance mode, but no, Ozpin had just done it, and quite easily by the way he was lackadaisically moving from side to side.

The arena walls went down. Jasper's jaw was dropped. "What was that!?" he commented.

"I believe that was me losing rather rapidly," Ruby said without heat. She knew she was going to lose, but she hadn't realized by just how much. How could anyone defend against that? More importantly, how did Cinder stay alive long enough for it to matter?

Ozpin wasn't breathing hard, but he did go and grab his cane, leaning on it subtly. "Good match, Ms. Rose. I admit, I haven't used that much energy in a good while. Good to stretch out those legs. And you are correct, Ms. Rose. I do not spar with students. However...you are not a student as yet," he winked, walking out the door.

The door did not chime.

Amber had mentioned something about how Ozpin was capable of magic. If that was a demonstration thereof, then Ruby wanted to learn that.

Dissection

Ruby kept replaying the scene over and over on her scroll. The arena fight from earlier.

Ozpin had moved so quickly, so impossibly fast, that she was sure that he was simply disappearing from one side, and teleporting over to the other side.

Then she slowed the camera angles down to the slowest speed possible.

Jasper was looking over her shoulder as they both watched the fight. Ruby's aura hadn't broken, but she was feeling it anyways. His attacks had practically cut straight through her aura. Her ribs hurt. Her back hurt. But more importantly, her brain hurt. What Ozpin did shouldn't be possible.

Ruby was fast. She knew she was fast, she could circle the arena in one point six seconds. And while it wasn't the biggest arena, only the barest fraction of a circle compared to the bigger arenas, most people would still take a few seconds to go around the entire thing.

Unless they were named Lilac or Jasper, then it would take a minute for one lap, but that was because they decided to walk.

"That was the fastest fifteen seconds of my life," Jasper said as he looked at the video length. Twenty seconds.

Ozpin had beat her in fifteen seconds. He was the headmaster of Beacon Academy, sure, but Ruby had strongly suspected that he just hadn't done much fighting recently. On the other hand, that was brutal. If magic could do that, then just what kind of weapon had Ozpin given her? "Fastest fifteen seconds of my life too," Ruby agreed.

Ozpin had ran the entire length of the arena in five frames of the camera. As the camera was going at nearly...she had to check earlier, twenty four frames per second, that meant that he'd made it in only a fifth of a second.

She had done the calculations out on a piece of paper, and even Jasper was trying his hand at those forces. That meant that Ozpin would have to force himself to move with an acceleration of nearly a hundred and fifty three meters per second squared.

Or, if she had her formula right, over fifteen times the force of gravity. Anything over ten was going to kill someone, anyone. Even with aura, that kind of acceleration would reduce someone to paste. And Ozpin had done it twice. Then there were his strides. He hadn't been running, he'd been walking. He was walking at nearly a hundred feet per second. The arena was only twenty feet in diameter, sure, so it wasn't that big, but...he sure moved weird.

"Alright, I'm gonna chalk it up to just Professor Ozpin being awesome and calling it a day. Mind if upload it to the CCT?" Jasper asked after a second.

"Fifteen times gravity, Jasper. How!?" Ruby said. She put her hands on the counter gently. "How!? That doesn't make any sense!"

"Probably a time Semblance," Jasper shrugged. "I mean, he had to be pretty awesome if he's the headmaster. A shining light in the dark."

"...Was that a Beacon-"

"That was a Beacon pun, yes."

"Argh. That's fine. Just means I need to get faster. And remake Crescent Rose."

"You never did tell us how Crescent Rose got destroyed the first time around," Jasper said. "Also, I'm posting that fight."

"Check with Ozpin first, but I don't think he'd mind."

"'Little...girl...demolished...by...Headmaster...'" Jasper commented out loud as he made up a title. Ruby rolled her eyes, grabbing the scroll out of his hand as the gray haired boy chuckled darkly.

"Yeah, no," Ruby said, looking at the title he'd actually put. 'Ozpin versus Ruby Rose; quickest match ever'. "I'd still say check with Ozpin first."

"Still strange to hear you call him Ozpin rather than Professor Ozpin," Jasper said, taking his scroll back. "And don't think I didn't notice the breaking question."

"I think you meant dodged question," Ruby commented. Jasper gave her a sly look, and she sighed. "Fine. You know I fought Cinder."

"Yeah, after the Incursion started, and there were Grimm all over Beacon, but the students beat them back."

"Well, Cinder came first. Basically she started the whole thing, trying to get people's negative emotions to go sky high, making all the Grimm run rampant towards Vale."

"I remember seeing that theory. It didn't really affect us though, down here on the ground."

"Nah, that's what the Breach was for. They triggered it early on accident. But no, Emerald Sustrai of team Cinnamon, or whatever their team name was, stole Crescent Rose and ran to get to Cinder."

"Okay...?"

"I chased her down, using Emerald's own weapons, a type of dual mantis blades. Anyways, I tracked her down to the CCT, where I fought Mercury Black with the help of Winter Schnee."

"Oh yeah, I remember seeing her around. She was ice cold."

"Jasper."

"Sorry not sorry."

Ruby sighed. "Anyways, we won and beat him, and then Winter went up to help Ironwood, who was beating on Emerald, and I went to the top to help Ozpin against Cinder. Cinder saw both of us, and leapt out of the CCT."

"So you got Crescent Rose back."

"For a second, sure. And then when I went to go find Zwei, she cornered me and started to attack. She was throwing around heat like no tomorrow, and it was only thanks to my new Semblance that I survived at all."

That was the lie she'd come up with. Cinder had been the other half-maiden, and had gotten a lot more practice at using them than Ruby had. Granted...she was probably better at it now, but that was only because she'd been using them as much as she felt she could get away with.

Jasper winced. "What was the melting point?"

Ruby tilted her head. "For Crescent Rose? Around twelve hundred." Jasper winced again. "Yeah, it was hot. Throwing around fire and heat like it was nothing. Anyways, once Pyrrha and Yang joined in, we started to beat her back. Then she ran, and she ran all the way to the shop on Amity."

"Wait, you don't mean..."

"Yep, the one that Lilac had been at. All of my weapons had been there, you know, the ones that weren't really all that good because there were shinier ones down here."

"I remember seeing most of those go up but almost none of them came back. I just figured you sold them all. But...I'm guessing something far hotter happened," Jasper said.

"It was like a forge," Ruby nodded. "Between Cinder and my new Semblance, the heat skyrocketed. She was using glass weapons, and I metal ones. For everything she made, I grabbed another. The ground was full of molten metal, and more than once I just stuck a pole in it and pulled it back up to act as shield or a mace."

"That sounds incredible."

"It was pretty neat," Ruby admitted. "But yeah, she basically cleaved Sundered Rose Copy and Crescent Rose straight down the middle."

"Sundered Rose Copy?"

"A copy of my mom's weapon. You know, the person the store's named after," Ruby said, nodding towards the front of the shop. "It was called 'Sundered Rose'. A type of an axe mixed with a rifle. Stolen by Neo a lot earlier."

Jasper nodded. "I remember you telling that story. I thought for sure they were going to use it to frame you somehow, making everything think you did something you didn't do."

"Nah, I had Ozpin and Ironwood. Mostly Ozpin. Ironwood I don't think liked me," Ruby said quietly.

"Then maybe you can mix the two. Sundered Rose and Crescent Rose. Sundered Crescent?" Jasper said, tilting his head down.

Ruby's mouth turned to a smirk. "Sundered Crescent...I can see it. Hold on," she said, grabbing her scroll and immediately loading up her blueprint app.

Sundered Crescent was an axe, rifle mix. Closer to a hammer really, the axe part had a neat mechashift where the plates could fold out to create a hammer and an axe, than a rifle, if she had to admit it. Crescent Rose was a scythe sniper rifle. She could mix both of those.

Turn the sniper into a regular rifle, but able to take in almost any caliber of ammunition. As long as she made two different triggers, one for short range and one for long range, she could effectively use both at the same time. Or she could twirl it around, have one end on the haft and the other on the head's side of the shaft. That way she wouldn't need to clear the chambers before she could reload, and she could still use the head of Crescent Rose to lock her in place as she fired.

She knew she was still a very light person, and a single shot of the sniper could, and would, send her flying, especially if she didn't use aura to lock herself into the ground. The back of the shaft would then be used for separate firings. She'd have to make it out of a metal known for not warping at either high speeds or high heat.

Actually the entire thing was going to be made out of that. She would not lose this one, this 'Sundered Crescent' if she used the name that Jasper had given it, to someone like Cinder again. And knowing her luck, they were going to find her anyways.

But if the front was the scythe, she could a bit of the hammer or axe back there. Although really, Sundered Rose was more of an axe with a widened edge at times. How had Mom used it again? It was hard to really remember, she'd left a long time ago and just kind of up and disappeared.

But it would have to be for a good reason, because otherwise Summer Rose would not have just up and left her daughters. It was hard to really say just how high up in 'the conspiracy' her mom and dad had been, although given that they used a specific artifact that Ozpin had told her dad to keep charge of as a coaster meant...well, pretty high up.

She'd have to figure out what all those things were at some point. Maybe there was something about magic in them. But really, strange artifacts? Ha! Maybe now she could make those artifacts! Yeah, that'd be cool, just surrounded by dozens of magic items!

And now she's sounding more and more like Lilac's 'Bugbears and Burrows' games. That actually reminded her, Yang had expressed interest in them a little bit, so she'd have to get the info from Lilac for her. Blake, surprisingly, knew how to play but didn't care for it, Jaune was apparently a game master, and Pyrrha had no idea what it was.

Right, Sundered Crescent. New design of a weapon. For her. The best darn design that she'd ever made. One side was the scythe head, because why mess with perfection if she was good with it? But then, on the other side, what if her usual counterweight was in fact an axe head in and of itself? Then she could use both sides and both sides of the scythe would be just as dangerous as the front end. Or...what if she combined some of Nora's weapon? A true hammer end could act as a good counterweight too.

Basic design...hmm...that was pretty good for the basic design. Now came the fun part, the specifics! What metal to use, what kind strength of dust she could use with it, how to make the special effects, the mechashifted look that she would need to get to...

The chime on the door cut through her thoughts. Shelve those thoughts, think about new weapons later. "Welcome to Summer's Weapon Shop!" Ruby cheered out as a small girl wandered in. Time for thinking of new weapons could be pushed off. Even with Jasper here, she couldn't let herself get rusty taking care of the shop by herself.

The girl was small, only around eight or ten years old, and gave a full grin that showed the small gap in the top teeth. Jasper put his comic down, taking care to try to hide it under the counter as Ruby listened to what the girl wanted.

The title of the second skit was intended to be as menacing as possible.

Until Next Time!

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Prank Wars Begin

Ruby sat on her couch, not reacting to the holoscreen going through the various motions of the game. Uncle Qrow was sitting on the floor, his legs crossed and he had his tongue sticking out, not that Ruby thought he knew that, as the controller in his hands was going crazy.

"See firecracker? It's not that hard," Qrow bragged as he then proceeded to walk up a seam in the textures in the game. Ruby rolled her eyes, but kept a smile on her face anyways. When Qrow said he wanted to show her something neat, she was envisioning something more...what was the word again? Oh yeah, fighting related. Not...that he'd figured out how to break a video game.

More importantly, what she wanted to know was why was he practicing how to break a video game in two. It made no sense, and when he'd sat down and started playing all she could think was 'huh. I knew he was into games in his free time but I didn't think he'd do this.'

"What is your goal with this?" Ruby had to try to stop herself from asking. She was unsuccessful, and the question was out in the open now.

"Ruby? You weren't paying attention to me? That hurts. Anyways, if you follow this seam, you can completely de-load this area, or more specifically you can de-load the door and go in early," Qrow explained.

Ruby didn't quite understand what the ring of torches was all about, maybe that was the actual solution rather than whatever half-assed solution Qrow had made up.

"I meant with the game."

"Oh, that. I just like to break things, and I don't like to break myself," Qrow admitted with a sly smirk. "And I get paid for every major glitch I find."

"You get paid for this?"

"It's not much compared to Huntsman work, but it's also a lot less dangerous compared to Huntsman work. I'll go out in the field as soon as Ozpin tells me the all clear."

"He's having you watch over me, isn't he?" Ruby guessed deadpan. Qrow looked as if he wanted to object, before Ruby kept going, "It's fine, Uncle Qrow. I get it. I'm valuable to the whole thing and he wants to keep an eye on me."

"It's not that he doesn't think you can't handle it. But rather I know what I'm looking for, but he doesn't have pictures of them," Qrow commented.

"Can you describe them?"

"I've never seen 'em either. We thought that we could identify them by sheer feel alone, but that's proving...well, not working."

"Do we even know how many of them there are?" Ruby asked. She knew there was a small group, multiples. Three, or four, or even five, she didn't know. Supposedly the 'Agents of Salem'.

"Three. Maybe four. No more than that though. We don't know who else she managed to get on her side though. I've been investigating Lionheart-"

"Who?"

"Lionheart. Leonardo Lionheart," Qrow answered. "The headmaster of Haven Academy, over in Mistral. He's scared most of the time, and that's where the team with Cinder Fall was supposedly from, so Ozpin asked me to look into it, see if Lionheart knew anything. He denies it when asked flat out though."

That only made sense, in Ruby's mind. If they were doing something wrong, they wouldn't admit to it. If someone went up and asked Torchwick 'have you done anything wrong' he'd probably answer...actually that was a bad metaphor. Torchwick would answer that quite honestly.

"Any word on Torchwick, or Emerald and Mercury?"

"Torchwick, no. The other two, they're in Atlas hands at the moment. Mercury was more open to the details of how he was recruited, Emerald's closed off completely. Don't suppose you managed to befriend her before everything went down either, did you?" Qrow asked.

"No, I barely knew her. She and Mercury were always sniping at each other. I don't even think their friends either," Ruby shook her head. "She never came in for maintenance the way Mercury did."

"He did mention that. His goal then was to see the kinds of defenses you had, because you're one of the only weapon shops in Vale."

"Does he have a fire Semblance or something? I suppose that was probably Cinder, but someone burned a hole in the arena shortly before the Breach. Not that it mattered, I fixed it quick."

"You have too much practice fixing things," Qrow smirked as he leaned back. "I think I've been spending too much time around here," he grinned.

Almost as if by summoning his Semblance, the holoscreen let out a small 'brzt' and small static pieces started to piece through the image. "Oh, that's a new one," Qrow smirked, hurriedly picking up his scroll and taking a screenshot, and starting typing what he was doing.

"I think that was the screen, not the game," Ruby pointed out.

"No, totally the game. Bet I could replicate it too," Qrow smirked as he reset it, despite losing nearly an hour's worth of progress. The screen stayed static. "Oh, maybe it was."

Ruby rolled her eyes, turning off the screen with her own scroll before turning it back on. There was no more static. "No, really, did Mercury have a fire Semblance?" Ruby asked.

"He didn't have one at all," Qrow shrugged. "He was just a really good fighter. He's the son of Marcus Black, who did have a known Semblance to take away Semblances-"

"And you weren't hunting him down?"

"Soon as I heard he existed I was on his tail," Qrow admitted. "But by the time I found him Mercury had already offed him, and ran off with Cinder and Emerald. Probably."

"Ah. Darn. You weren't hunting him down for non-nefarious purposes."

"You know me well firecracker. Yeah, I was trying to get rid of this stupid Semblance of mine," Qrow said as the holoscreen turned static again. "Oh darn, there it goes again. Must be super active again."

"Or it just knows that you shouldn't be doing this," Blake's voice called from out from the window. Ruby turned to see Blake crawling through the window. Unlike the last time she'd seen her, her arms were quite a bit tanner than they had been, and even her legs seemed a bit more shapely, as if they've gained a bit more muscle. Her hair seemed a bit longer than it was last Ruby had seen her.

"Hey, it's my secondary job to break games," Qrow answered back. "Also, wow where have you been?"

"Job," Blake answered. "Wanted to give Ruby back her book," she said, reaching into a small satchel and handing her the small book.

"Oh nice! Thanks Blake," Ruby grinned as she took it and put it on the shelf. She hoped that Qrow wouldn't ask.

"So what kind of smut is that one? Straight, threesome, gay...?" Qrow smirked as Ruby's face started to redden. "You act as if I don't know what you read firecracker. Remember I helped you move in."

"It's not smut! It's just-" Ruby started to fight back, before Blake picked in.

"Mix of all three, really," Blake answered, leaving Ruby to redden even more. "The plot's actually really good, and the romance is well written. Although there was that one part with the-" That wasn't right! That book didn't have any of that, she would know that if she actually read through it why was Blake doing this to her!?

"Okay thanks Blake you can leave now and you too Qrow you can all leave right now thank you very much leave me to my books I need to sleep like right now I have an early day tomorrow I don't know what you're doing but I-"

"Oh, please go on, Ms. Belladonna," Qrow answered, ignoring Ruby's rambling. "What other part did you enjoy?" he asked.

"Oh, it's Ruby that enjoyed it," Blake smirked. "A lot of the pages with the more...interesting parts were dog-eared."

What!? No they weren't, Ruby had never even dog-eared any pages of any book, the most that she'd do is put a bookmark in the right spot...oh. Oh. That's what was going on. Ruby's eyes narrowed as she looked at Blake. The cat faunus was wearing a bit more showy clothes than usual. Her usual top had been replaced with a simple white blouse, and her leggings were still black but they had a bit more purple to them. Ruby could also see a few scratches in them, small holes that looked as if Grimm claws had tried to rake her through.

"Oh? What kind of interesting?" Qrow was playing along with it, darn it. Ruby felt her face flushed as both of them ignored her.

"You know, the kind that only adults should be reading," Blake smirked. "And a few more of the tastier areas?"

"Is this the kind of thing that an uncle shouldn't be knowing about?" Qrow asked.

"Absolutely, one hundred percent, stop asking now Uncle Qrow," Ruby managed to butt in, although whether or not they'd be listening she didn't know.

"Probably," Blake admitted, "But it does involve bondage."

There was nothing in that book like that. "See if I ever let you borrow anything from me again," Ruby growled out, as Uncle Qrow threw back his head and laughed.

Blake's eyes widened in unadulterated panic. "Wait, wait, I'm sorry, please don't stop letting me read your books, Yang was putting me up to this!" she shouted in obvious shocked fear.

"Aw come on Blakey! Don't bring me into this!" Yang's voice called out over the scroll in Blake's pocket. "It was hilarious! Even better than I'd hoped! Did you see how red she turned!? It would've been better if you worn what I told you to!"

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me that your entire team was on that side..." she asked.

She almost didn't need to, as Pyrrha's far too cheerful voice called out, "Hello again!"

Ruby hung her head. "Really. Blake? Was that necessary?" she asked.

"You called my parents without telling me you did. You know what you did," Blake answered as she sat down on the couch. "It was only luck that Qrow was here too."

"I told you he'd be there! Seriously, I looked over at his apartment and it was picked clean," Yang's voice said.

"I mean if we're chatting with everyone, just pull out the scroll," Qrow said with a shrug as he went back to playing the game. "So how's the blondeys?" he asked.

Blake pulled out the scroll from her chest pocket, with Ruby realizing that she could just barely have seen the camera. "Yang is Yang, Jaune is recuperating from visiting Argus," Blake explained as she reached down to her shoes, slowly untying them.

"Argus? What's out there?" Ruby asked as she looked for a map. Argus was a small city state on the edge of Mistral and Atlas. Close to Solitas, even though it was technically on Anima's landmass. Protected by both.

"Oh, Jaune had a sister and her wife move out there. They have a son who likes to play 'how can I eat Jaune's hair now', according to him."

"Seriously, he jumped down from the ceiling just to eat it!" Jaune's voice called out from the scroll. "Also hi Ruby, hi Qrow. Yang, shower's free," Jaune said.

"Oh, that's my cue!" Yang's voice shouted before the sound of a door slamming shut.

"I didn't realize you liked these kinds of games Qrow," Blake said, staring at the screen. "I thought you were more into fighters like what Ruby plays?"

"Nah, I'm the one whose into fighters and shooters," Ruby admitted, "but I don't have much time to play anymore. Uncle Qrow's always liked the adventure games."

"I started with Adventure, way back in the first scroll model about twenty, twenty five years ago," Qrow admitted. "Yeah people, laugh it up, I'm old."

"No, I remember that game. It was...one of Adam's favorites," Blake said quietly, looking off to the side. Her eyes had that hidden layer of sadness that Ruby knew she hid fairly well, every time that the man was brought up.

Qrow shuddered, "Eek, there goes that game off my queue," he said. "Ah well, there's always more like it."

"So what are you doing back? Last I hear you guys had a mission," Ruby asked. "At least, that's what Yang texted me. A pic of everyone on the bullhead."

"Yeah, we made it back not long ago. I finished the book and wanted to give it back," Blake admitted, "And that was when Yang came up with the idea."

Ruby groaned. "Darn it Yang...see if I maintain Ember Celica on my lien again."

"That and you did call my parents when I didn't want to."

"Everything turned out better for it!"

"They gave Pyrrha and Yang enough spilled secrets that I am now forever called 'Blakey-wakey' and I can't fight back," Blake deadpanned. Ruby had to admit, she'd probably call her that too if she thought she could get away with it. It was kind of cute.

"Hey, I can give you a few of Yang's," Qrow volunteered.

"Ooh, I'd like to hear these too!" Jaune's voice answered from the scroll.

Forging Days

Ruby felt the sweat go down her neck, and gave a light giggle as the wind and water slowly drained it away.

She was on the same stool that she usually was whenever she was forging. She needed the extra time this time, and she was glad that she'd been let in earlier than normal.

A small raincloud was heavy with humidity above her, creating a light mist that cooled her off but didn't touch the burning hot metals on the ground. There was a small wind howling around, occasionally picking stuff up and throwing it into her hands, such as the hammer whenever she needed to make another copy of the sword.

Today was basically her commissions day. The day that she'd go in, and do what her actual job was. She missed this place while she'd been up in Amity.

While the Amity Arena blacksmith's room had been large and updated, and an absolutely fantastic place to work in, there was something that she'd missed about the small and cramped area she found herself in now. Jasper and Lilac, both, were watching the shop today. Zwei was there too, probably keeping things from getting on fire too much. Or maybe he'd be helping. It was up to Zwei, half the time. The other half of the time it was up to whatever it was that Ruby could command him to do.

She'd already gotten through three of the ten commissions for the day, and it'd only been a few hours. The maiden's powers were absolutely a godsend for this, Ruby had realized.

She could create heat from nothing, making sure that the blades and steel she was using, if she was using regular steel that is, would stay bendable for longer periods of time before she started the tempering process. Which itself was a bit shorter than normal. She couldn't just conjure up oil, but she could keep the barrel of water relatively clean, and she could refill her own jugs of water because she needed it.

The heat had forced her to discard her usual combat skirt, corset, and jacket. And it was hotter than normal, and while she was better at it than she'd been before, that didn't mean that she wasn't sweating like crazy. And that was before the powers of the maiden went into it. She was using everything except lightning, and honestly it was starting to hurt her head. But it was definitely making her go quicker.

"Three bars steel, increase the heat," Ruby muttered as she looked over the current commission form. She'd taken the time to put each one into her scroll, letting the blueprints play out when she needed them to.

This one would fairly easy. It had zero true mechashift parts, not that she'd have designed that way if she had full control over it, but it was what they wanted. A sword that could create hardlight dust copies of itself, using that for its own firing mechanism.

Because the dust would all be installed in the sword itself, it would have a very limited range of around thirty feet or so. More if she'd put in a projector, but then that would increase the dust requirements to nearly triple the request had, so there would be no projector. The sword shape was easy enough. Three bars of steel for the blade, pommel, and hilt. The blade itself would have to hold the hardlight dust projectors, small as they would be, in the mold itself.

Sword shapes were easy once she got the hang of them. The steel melted, slowly, and she took another drink of water as she glanced over at the blueprints she'd made. They would get handed off to the customer after she was finished with it, along with other unique things about its maintenance.

Just because it had no true mechashift parts didn't mean that it didn't have to be maintained. Hardlight projectors were notorious for being finicky, and she had told the person who requested it that. Still no change, so that was what Ruby would do.

Honestly, if she'd have taken the dust increase already she'd have put in a single solid projector in the base, have dust wiring to bring it throughout the entire rest of the sword, and have it encapsulate the sword shape from there.

More dust, yes, but infinitely easier to maintain, rather than six projectors, three on each side. And they wanted them to be covered by the steel, which meant steel plating that could merge into the regular sword so as to not be a weakness.

She took the mold shape, nearly three feet long, and placed three of the hardlight projectors she'd bought specifically for this project, into each of the three major holes. They'd be connected with dust wiring, leading to the small trigger on the hilt. The customer had to have some way to tell the sword to activate its dust, and although they'd at first wanted motion sensors, Ruby had been able to talk them out of that.

It was going to be hard enough as it was, because now she'd have to hook up the rest of the sword while it was covered in molten steel. "Alright...let's do this..." Ruby said as she finished the initial wiring of the first three projectors.

The high temperature pot turned, slowly spilling the molten steel out of the forge into the sword mold. Ruby immediately felt the heat bask into her face. She had to concentrate on this part, because this was the most serious part. The additives in most steel were added to give it more strength, or to harden it against rust. The customer had distinctively said they didn't want any additives, so it was pure steel. Well, as pure as any steel could be. Steel itself was an alloy of carbon and iron.

But they didn't want anything, and Ruby would acquiesce, as bad of an idea as that was. She'd have liked to have alloyed some titanium in, which would keep it a bit stronger and less prone to rusting. No dust, though, as the sword wouldn't need it. The first half of the mold was filled, and Ruby took a moment to sigh. Now came the real hard part, and she focused the maiden powers on her hands, creating a small cyclone around them.

There was, according to who she bought the steel from, no impurities in this steel that would make it weaker. 'Their best steel', she had been told. That had been a lie, Ruby knew, because she's already boiled out more than a few.

But with the cyclone of wind on her hands, she focused on the next three projectors, connected only by a single wire to the next one in the chain.

She grit her teeth as her hands just barely touched the edge of the steel. By all rights, she probably should have lost her hands to that, instead it had merely burned her.

And it wasn't as if it wasn't healed instantly by the cold soothing rain that was out in the open air. Well, not healed. It'd still be red, probably blister. But honestly, she'd take a blister over losing her entire hand.

Before she had the maiden's powers, she doubted she'd have been able to do this one. She'd have to set up a separate design phase, one that would allow the dust wires to be able to absorb the high temperatures of the molten steel during the forging phase.

Probably create a chain linked of metal plates that could move and change, similar to how she did Ember Celica. Create the plates well enough, and they'd be able to maintain the illusion that it was all one piece. Harder to maintain though, but by the time it got to that point it wasn't really her problem.

But no, this was a Grimm fighting weapon. Which meant it wasn't just her problem, it was everyone's problem.

The projectors took longer than she'd have liked, and by the time she poured on the second half of the steel, the first half was starting to cool down and solidify. Her eyes narrowed as she turned up the heat again, making it more liquid than before. It was getting so hot it was hard to breathe, and she glanced at the windows before opening them with the wind. The humidity took out most of the bite of the heat, and she hoped that no one was outside because if so they'd be drenched in sweat in only a minute or two of being out there.

The sword shape done, she turned to let it cool and solidify a bit. The projectors were done, at least, and that was the real hard bit. Now came just regular forging, and she could do that in her sleep. Had done it a few times, up in Amity.

She turned to the next commission, leaving the sword up on another screen for use in around an hour or so. The sword was still too fragile to lift up right now, unless she was making a curved sword out of it.

Although that did remind her that she needed to send an email or something to Winter to thank her helping fight Cinder Fall, and whether or not she needed new curved blades.

They weren't falchions, nor were they scimitars, but somewhere in the middle between the two. Sabers, if she had to be honest. Although probably Winter had three or four weaponsmiths on staff back in Atlas to help her forge her weapons. She didn't need one from Vale.

But maybe she'd appreciate it anyways.

The next commission was going to be a fun one to test. A mace, or spiked ball close to a flail, that when button pressed would have the spikes explode out, then recalling back into the ball with another press of the button. She could do that one without dust at all, if she'd wanted, but the customer had been very insistent on a specific spread and explosion output.

Which meant they had to be using fire dust and dust wire. Easy, really. Minorly annoying because Ruby had found out she hated creating spikes on things, because each one was another grinding session and having sparks fly into her arms or face.

She was glad she wore armor when she was grinding along with heat resistant goggles. Otherwise she'd have a lot more scars along her body than she did, and that was with her having aura.

"Alright, let's see...spiked ball, one a half pounds, two bars," Ruby said as she grabbed another two bars of steel, regular steel with strengthening additives and a slight bit of chromium added with it, because the customer didn't want to have to take time to polish it, throwing it into the forge.

She made another note to the pile of metal she was using to have to pay the blacksmith for. One of these days she'd just have to find some way to do this all magically, but...really, magic couldn't replace everything.

And there was something soothing to be done about having her hammer a ball into shape after all the oblong shapes she'd accidentally made when fighting Cinder. That was the last time she'd actually been forging, wasn't it? For a definition of forging, at least. Really, sticking a pipe of steel in molten steel and lifting it up, having it cool and solidify on the way up is not the best of ways to create new weapons, even if the shapes they had made were fairly cool.

The dust wire would be hard to connect to everything, but she had a flail mold already long since made. A lot of people in Vale like their flails and maces, really. They were surprisingly popular for a choice, considering that the main weapon of Vale was supposedly an axe.

Maybe it was just because they assumed everyone else would have an axe so they'd be different and special and have a mace or flail instead.

The small timer she'd set for the steel bars went off, and Ruby took a moment to readjust herself. Time to get back to work. Seven of ten commissions left. Today was going to be a long day...and to be honest, Ruby couldn't be gladder for it.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Tax Season

Ruby stared in horror down at her scroll. No, it couldn't be that soon. That was impossible. Should be impossible. And yet, clear as day, was the message from the revenue service.

It was a weekend, and while ordinarily the shop would be open, especially on the weekend, this was one of the few days where her day did not line up with everyone else's. Everyone else's middle of the week was in fact, right now, and she was closed for the day.

Which made it even more unfair that she still had to work! Granted, it wasn't as if this was unexpected. She knew it was coming. She had everything planned out for it, in fact, so it should, logically, just be the printing out of forms. But it involved the greatest of her enemies. Far beyond the evil of Cinder Fall, far beyond the evil of shipping canned dog food, even more evil than the Grimm itself...

A printer.

She didn't have a printer. For obvious reasons, with Uncle Qrow around as much as he was it would have done something like grow sentience and wanted to try to take over the world. Goodness knows the evilness of printers was nothing to stand idly by.

She could probably go to the CCT, hopefully she was still welcome there after she accidentally blew off half the top chunk of it, and use theirs. Or...she sent a quick message off to Yang, asking if she had a printer that Ruby could use to print out some forms.

For tax day. Well, tax month, really. She had all month to try and do this, and she already had everything ready to go. She'd in fact calculated it exactly truthfully according to Vale laws, because she was still somehow surprised that she wasn't in jail over being a gun runner.

She suspected Ozpin of pulling some strings, or maybe it was because half of the guns she made just flat out didn't work thanks to Qrow's ever growing influence.

Her scroll buzzed. 'Of course not, you think I'd have one of those evil things? Try the CCT'

Thanks Yang, Ruby sighed. Her scroll buzzed again, this time from Blake. 'What do you need a printer for? Go down to a copy center or something'.

Were they passing around her message to everyone on Team PABY? Or was it just those two? Knowing Blake and Yang, probably just those two, unless Jaune knew and just didn't want to send her a message.

"Right, CCT first, then copy center. Come on Ruby, you have an entire month to print out two forms. That's it," Ruby muttered. She could do this, no matter how evil the printers were. How often they came up and started the oblivious uprising, dooming all of humanity and faunuskind to not having the proper forms!

She took a moment to sigh, grabbing her scroll and making sure it was charged. She grabbed her cloak, making sure to fill up Zwei's dog food bowl before she left. "Alright Zwei, I'm off! And hopefully going to be coming back with the proper forms."

She really wished she could just upload them on scroll, but Vale's service was old and ancient, and much like insurance forms, only came around one time a year. Maybe two. She was a citizen of Vale still, and that meant she had to do the dreaded thing. Set up tax forms.

Truth be told, the majority of taxes were fairly easy. At least on her end. Each month she'd take a certain amount out of Lilac and Jasper's paychecks...and her own, really, although she really didn't pay herself much. She did, though, she wasn't dishonest about that. Keep it in a separate account, which Vale's revenue service knew about, and then at the end of the year the bank would automatically send it in along with most of the proper forms already done. They didn't work a full year, but she had, so the majority of the account was her own withholding.

The bank she did her business with most often had a lot of these accounts set up, so it was nothing new for them. It was new for Ruby, when she'd stood in line that one time only a month into having the shop open. And even then, only because Dad had reminded her that she needed to technically pay taxes.

There was more to it for her, of course, as the owner, but she could do most of that by scroll. She'd already had most of it done, actually, with everything except the proper forms set. The only thing she was missing was her own employment income which...was surprisingly low. Not her fault if she paid herself less than Jasper and Lilac, not that they were aware of that.

Which, considering that she was thinking of room and board as a shop expense, really left her with nothing much to spend it on. Maybe some books, certain utilities like her CCT usage, that was paid out of pocket, but really she didn't have much to spend it on. Next time she went shopping somewhere she'd have to check only how much of her account it would take out. She didn't need to worry about the amount, not really.

The airport of Vale was mostly civilian use only, with Huntsman and Huntresses having their own separate airport. Ruby had always wanted to be using that one, but it was open only to fully licensed Hunters. Occasionally Beacon students got to use it, but it was fairly rare according to Yang. Even when Blake went to visit Menagerie, she had to take a plane to Anima, to a city close to the island, before taking a boat the rest of the way, and she had to use the civilian airport.

Which also made it so that anyone who wanted to use the CCT had to take a Bullhead to the Beacon outskirts. There was a tower within the city proper, but Ruby would not use that one at all if she could help it. For one, it was almost always full, and even the times that it wasn't it was...well, dirty and disgusting like the bathroom out of an outskirt fuel station was not an inappropriate metaphor.

The counters at the airport were always fairly quick, and the receptionist just glanced at her before waving her closer. "Beacon CCT?" she asked with a dry and writ smile. Ruby nodded, hoping that she wasn't shaking her head too fast or being too obvious in her desire to get this done quick and get this done right now. "It'll be a hundred lien, and leaves in ten minutes," she said.

Ruby's wallet slowly slid out of her hand as she pulled out the appropriate lien card. It fell onto the ground with a thunky thud as Ruby put the card on the counter, reaching down to grab it. When she looked back up, the card was missing and the receptionist looked just as confused as she did.

"That's weird. I know I just saw it..." the receptionist said quietly...she shook her head. "I saw you pay, so you're good. Thanks Ms. Rose," she said. Ruby nodded, heading to sit down in one of the seats. The Bullheads that the airport used to Beacon were fairly accurate on time, and while she could take a bus to Beacon...and had...she just had a feeling that she should be at the airport.

The rest of the wait went just fine, but it was as Ruby was walking on board the Bullhead that she happened to turn her head towards incoming air traffic. A single man, walking behind someone who was much taller and bigger than him. A scorpion tail was wound around his waist, and the only reason Ruby knew that's what it was because she saw the small stinger slowly hanging out behind him. He had a crazed look on his face, as if he was desperately wanting to cause some mayhem. A white shirt, hanging open and showing off the large cross shaped scar on his stomach.

His eyes met Ruby's, and the door shut just as recognition seemed to go through him.

Ruby blinked, before she went to the side as the Bullhead started up again. "Alright, next stop, Beacon grounds. Remember, to get to the CCT follow the bricked pathway," the pilot said through the intercom. There were a few others on the Bullhead, most of them staring at their scrolls or glancing at the news feeds playing in the walls.

Who was that person? Ruby was trying to figure that out. He didn't attack, but he seemed to certainly recognize her. Then again, this was Vale, and just because she'd never seen someone before didn't mean that she wasn't pseudo-famous.

She would put it out of her head by looking on her own scroll, designing more of the features of Sundered Crescent, as she started to call it in her head. Jasper's name wasn't a bad one at all, combining both Crescent Rose and Sundered Rose.

The Bullhead landed on Beacon grounds, and people mindlessly got out as they always did, and within another few minutes was picking up some more passengers from Beacon before heading back down. There was a near constant stream of people going both ways, and although the fare was cheap it still made a lot of money from what Ruby could think of.

It wasn't as if it really needed to go all that far, and the Bullheads were really good at going between the two.

She felt a flush of embarrassment rush through her as she gazed over at the CCT, still seeing the large hole in the top from where her...fireworks...accidentally blew a giant hole in it. The bottom part of it was still kind of banged up from when Mercury, Winter, and her went at it, she noticed as the glass doors were still not repaired.

There were a few computers fully ready to go, and with no one in front of them, Ruby sat in front of one, starting the usual protective measures she used. Each terminal had a privacy screen that one could employ for only a few lien, and considering she was working with sensitive data, she knew she would have to.

The forms came up easy enough, already loading from her scroll. In only a click or two, they were on the main terminal screen, and she was rapidly filling in all the data that she needed to. She saved the files onto her scroll, just in case something would happen and she would, as Blake had put it, have to run down to a copy center.

Maybe she should invest in one of those evil printers...the fiends! Even now they're trying to force her hand, to get her to buy something that will only cause her pain and misery!

There was a printer here, right? She looked over the terminal walls, seeing a small one in the corner. It was rare that anything would have to be printed, exception being tax season alone. She sighed, hitting the print button on the terminal, and rushing into her Semblance over to the printer.

Immediately a few of the others in the CCT turned to glare at her for getting rose petals all over them. Ruby tried not to feel like she was doing something wrong by being here, but it was hard at the best of times. "Hey Ruby," Weiss' voice asked from behind her. "You know you can't use your Semblance in here."

"Weiss!?" Ruby jumped a foot in the air, hoping that didn't randomly activate the maiden powers, as she landed. "Sorry, I'll try not to do it again!"

"Tax forms?" Weiss asked as the printer next to her went off. "You know you can just send these in electronically right?"

"They're for employees."

"Do your employees have scrolls? They do have a certain amount of encryption software. As long as they have scrolls, you could just send it to them directly," Weiss advised. "The SDC does it enough times."

Ruby blinked, before she turned to the forms. She could have...just not done all this? She could've just stayed in her shop all day!?

As if to spit on her, the printer started giving a small error and chucking black smoke out at her. The forms she'd worked so hard for sat there in the basin, as if waiting in the mouth of an eternal enemy. "You uh...you should take them anyways," Weiss advised, heading to another of the privacy enabled terminals. Ruby glared at the device. Evil printers were evil...and this didn't even need to happen!?

Surprise Calls

Ruby stared out the window as the rain continued to fall. Lilac was dusting some of the dust off in the corner, a small feather duster in her hand.

Behind her was Zwei, who was constantly leaping up and attempting to eat the feather duster, much to Ruby and Lilac's consternation.

"Please tell me you aren't the one doing all this," Lilac asked as she pointed out the window. "I've gone through practically two umbrella's just today."

"How?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head. Yeah the storm, although to call it a storm was a bit much, was directly overhead but it wasn't like it was windy at the same time. Her element was mainly wind, after all.

With a lot of fire. And some lightning. As Amber had put it during the transfer, 'Go and light the world on fire!'

She'd get there in time, eventually. Only one more week for Jasper and Lilac as her employees, and she was really not looking forward to the whole 'party' the two had planned. Lilac had given her a knowing smirk as soon as she found out, although what it was she knew Ruby wished that she would just tell her.

"Oh, one umbrella had a massive hole in it caused by...you know, I've actually forgotten how I got that hole in it. And then I put a second one under it, and that one started to have a hole in it too..." Lilac started.

"Is it because you keep shaking them as hard as you can as soon as you walk into a building?" Ruby deadpanned, pointing to the two soaking umbrellas off to the side. Lilac had walked in that morning, closed them both up on top of each other, which may or may not have caused the hole in them in Ruby's mind, and then proceeded to shake them off as hard as she could.

"Isn't that what you're supposed to do with umbrellas?"

No. They weren't intended for that. They were intended to keep rain off of the person holding them. And that was it.

Maybe she'd have to make an umbrella weapon and just give that over to Lilac. Hardlight dust for the actual umbrella portion, she could make that shape easy enough. Fold out with simple metal so it otherwise looks like a cane or something similar. She could make a copy of Hush actually, Neo's weapon, odd as that was. Although a parasol and an umbrella were two different things...

She could do that in a day, if she really wanted to.

"No, Zwei," Lilac muttered as the corgi jumped up five feet to grab at the feather duster. "This has dust particles on it, not for puppies."

"I don't think that matters much to him, not really," Ruby said. Her scroll buzzed off to the side.

"Two hundred lien that's Ozpin again," Lilac said instantly. "Considering how bad he thrashed you last time, maybe he wants another one."

"I hope not..." Ruby answered as she glanced at it. She looked at it for a moment, before she blinked. She looked away for a second in confusion, before looking back towards it. The name was still the same.

What was General Ironwood doing calling her scroll? "He...Hello?" she answered, turning on the video just so he could see exactly how confused she was.

The video didn't turn on, which Ruby guessed she wouldn't have been surprised by. "Ruby Rose," Ironwood's voice called out. "Are you alone right now?"

An eyebrow raised up. Lilac crashed into the dust area as Zwei managed to grab the feather duster. The cat faunus had to start trying to yank the feather duster out of his mouth, and he was letting out a low growl that said he wasn't giving up anytime soon. "General Ironwood!" Winter's voice called out a moment later.

Ruby waited a second. "Ah, right. My apologies, Ms. Rose. I wish to ask you a question of sensitive nature."

"That's truthfully not much better," Ruby added with a slight hint of a smirk. "The only other one here is Zwei and one of my employees."

"Then perhaps some justification first then. I wish to ask you to come to Atlas for a week. As Professor Ozpin tells me you have yet to enroll into Beacon, you are of course allowed to say no."

"I don't think I can afford Atlas," Ruby said after a long moment. "Certainly can't afford to come and stay for a week. I have the shop to take care of."

"Hey, we can handle the shop. Just because it's our last week and a half doesn't mean we've forgotten everything," Lilac pointed out. "Don't use the shop as an excuse!"

"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?" Ruby deadpanned.

"I think she is on the proper side," Ironwood's voice said over the scroll. "There is someone I wish for you to meet, but to do it you must be over here in Atlas. We can pay for your hotel stay, and for any lost damages incurred by your shop."

Ruby glanced up at Lilac, who had sat down next to her. The cat faunus' eyes were massive, staring at the scroll. "Help?" Ruby mouthed to her.

"You are, of course, allowed and should bring Qrow or Taiyang. Both of them are more than welcome to join you. However, we do ask that you, at least, come in person," Ironwood continued.

"So you'll...what, pay for the shop if it's not open for an entire week?"

"Yes. However much you usually pay in rent, dog sitting costs, dust expiries, and anything else."

"For an entire week."

"Yes. Winter...?" Ironwood's voice trailed off, as if he wasn't sure he was saying it properly.

"No, you're doing fine, General. I believe it's more that Ms. Rose doesn't believe that anyone would do that," Winter's voice said congenially. "And yes, Ms. Rose, I would like to talk with you as well. You alone know what truly happened up there with Cinder Fall, and Weiss had mentioned you were up at the CCT the other day."

Lilac started giggling. "Yeah, she needed to make employee tax forms, and she forgot that both of her employees have scrolls. With encryption software on them."

"Is this rag on Ruby day and I just missed being told?" Ruby asked, glaring with a side eye at her employee. She turned back to the scroll. "That's a...generous offer there, General Ironwood, but..."

"If you're concerned about my dislike of you, do not worry," Ironwood's voice said easily. Ruby let out a sigh of relief, before he said, "That hasn't changed. I still don't."

"Then why ask me at all!?"

"Because you're the only one with the experience of...as Ozpin put it, the second Semblance," Ironwood said harshly, as if he didn't approve of calling it that.

Lilac's eyes blinked as she raised her eyebrow towards Ruby. "Alright, I know when something's above my paygrade. I'm gonna go...I don't know, clean the ammunition in the back," Lilac said, making sure to shut the door loudly.

Ruby waited a moment, before Ironwood spoke up, "If she actually left, then yes, Ms. Rose, we would like to speak to you regarding that second Semblance."

"She left."

"The maiden powers then. There is a woman here, on her deathbed-" Ironwood started.

"No! I'm not doing it again!" Ruby stated harshly, and instantly. "I'm not, I refuse to be the reason why anyone dies early if I can help it!"

"You misunderstand," Winter said softly. "We wish for you to speak and train with her, and potentially train with her replacement should the end come for her, naturally, while you're here."

The wind was taken out of Ruby's sails instantly, often more literal than she liked as the wind died down around her. She hadn't even realized the powers had turned on.

Zwei was on the ceiling, the feather duster in his mouth, giving a happy squeak as he chomped down on something he most definitely shouldn't be having.

"Oh," Ruby muttered. "Sorry..."

"No apologies needed, Ms. Rose. We can still see you, after all, even if we have video turned off on our end," Ironwood said. "I suppose the way I phrased it was not the better way of suggesting it."

"Would it..."

"If it's any consolation, it's actually Fria that wishes to speak with you the most," Winter's voice said gently. "She wishes to speak with the new maiden's soul, to tell of the secrets that she has figured out, as she has had no training."

"Why is your video turned off?" Ruby asked. "Seems a bit strange if you're in an office."

"We are not," Ironwood's voice said quietly.

"It's because of me. They do not wish to let the Enemy know," an older woman's voice called out quietly. It was harsh and cold, and yet the very sound of it made Ruby feel like relaxing. "They do not wish to let her know where I am. They are paranoid that my power will leave them."

"And for good reason! Amber was taken directly from under Ozpin's gaze with nary a thought! If it wasn't for Ruby we wouldn't have the fall maiden's power at all, and the Relic of Choice would be lost!" Ironwood's voice called out.

"General, volume!" Winter reminded harshly.

Ruby flinched as she hoped that Lilac wasn't able to hear any of that. Although...Relic of Choice? She'd have to ask Ozpin about that at some point. Or Qrow. Qrow was a better bet, because she had no doubt that as long as he was drunk he was an open book. And he couldn't deny Ruby anything if she asked politely enough.

"Yes. Sorry. My apologies, Ms. Rose. Please, let Winter know what dates work best for you. The offer is open. And yes, both Qrow and Taiyang are allowed to come as well. If you can get Qrow too..."

"You want me to pass a message onto him?"

"It's more from Ozpin than anything else. He wants Qrow to stop taking potshots at him in crow form," Ironwood's voice sounded as if he didn't want to snicker.

Ruby felt her face flush. "I'll...let him know. Thanks for the offer, General Ironwood," she said, trying her best to be polite but at the same time wanting to get off this conversation as fast as she could.

She ended the scroll call as fast as she could. "Alright Lilac, we're done out here," she called out. "And we're lucky no customer's came in during that," she muttered a moment later.

The rain continued to pound on the door, as Zwei finally landed on the glass dust container, continuing to chomp down on the feather duster.

"Oh good. I have no idea what was being said," Lilac lied easily. "And truthfully I have no idea what any of it means."

"The walls aren't very thick here."

"That's just something your uncle says whenever your girlfriend's over," Lilac smirked, before she saw Zwei on the glass. "No, bad puppy! No, no eating feather duster!" she shouted suddenly, trying to yoink it away from him. He bit down hard and fought with her every step of the way.

"Not my girlfriend," Ruby reminded easily, as if she was more than used to it. She glanced over at the calendar. "Hmm...I'll have to ask..." she said, quickly texting both Qrow and her dad the General's offer.

She waited a few minutes before Qrow texted her back, with a simple thumbs up emoji. Then an actual message came through, 'sounds good firecracker. let me know when'.

That was one down. "Zwei, please let go!" Lilac was saying as she tried to pull the feather duster off of him. The corgi wasn't letting go, and despite the fact he was small in stature, he was surprisingly tough.

Her scroll buzzed again, with a message from her dad. 'No can do this week. Next week better.'

Well. Ruby took the moment to sigh. Of course that would make things harder. Now she'd have to coordinate with Winter...and she really wanted to look at those Atlesian Sabers because Winter was really good with them.

That did mean that she'd have to be here for that employee party. And she had no way of getting out of it. "Darn it, and I was so close too..." Ruby muttered under her breath.

"Zwei!" Lilac called out as the corgi ran upstairs with half of the feather duster. Ruby shook her head at the puppy's antics. And now she'd have to find a dog sitter too.

Yeah, doing a bit more worldhopping now that we're officially in V4. Things...don't go the same way. For obvious reasons.

Until Next Time!

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Employee Party

Lilac Foster looked around her employer's actual apartment for the first time in...well, since she'd been hired, actually.

Despite seeing people come up and down all the time, now was the first time she'd actually and seen it herself.

It was more functional than it was seeming to be. Close to more of a studio than anything major. The main room, really the only room, had the table, a sofa that she was lounging on which was surprisingly comfortable, and the bed on the far side. Across from her was the holoscreen, playing whatever it was that Ruby was watching last. News channel highlights, it seemed.

Ruby was supposed to be flying out of Vale the next day, which was why they were having this early. Otherwise, Lilac knew that it wouldn't be for another few days.

They were celebrating the last time that she and Jasper would be part of Summer's Weapon Shop. She had school coming back up soon, and wouldn't have the time to dedicate to doing both. Jasper was also learning...something. Whether that was more from his dad or going back to school like her, she didn't know. To be honest, she didn't particularly like him either.

But after this...this was probably going to be the last time that she'd interact with either of the two. And that was despite the bunch of drama that was unleashed upon her by Ruby's scroll call with General Ironwood last week.

With a general. From Atlas. Asking for Ruby directly, after talking something about a maiden's power. According to the reading she did afterwards, and no one could blame her for that because the walls here actually were thin, that just meant a woman who hadn't had relations yet. Which didn't make sense to her. What did the season have to do with any of that? Unless Ironwood was talking more about the Fall girl herself. That made more sense, but obviously Ruby wasn't hiding her.

Heck, according to the news, Ruby had been part of the team that had killed her! And that she was responsible for helping with the Grimm Incursion of Beacon, which...didn't make any sense to her either.

So yeah, she was okay with leaving.

She was in sweatpants and a tanktop, staring over at the gray haired boy on the other side, pulling bottles out of a black bag that he'd taken in earlier. "Alright, so we have...a bunch of things. I grabbed some beer, because that's always fun-" Jasper started.

"Beer is disgusting," Lilac chimed in. "Seriously, you want to open Ruby's mind to drinking, and you choose to do it with beer? Come on, grab the good stuff."

Ruby was on the bed, looking extremely uncomfortable, not that Lilac blamed her. Zwei was downstairs, playing in the arena again. Lilac had seen him turn it on himself and turning on the same racetrack that Ruby had used sometimes. Maybe he was trying to beat her record.

"Well hey, beer's a classic," Jasper fought back. "And yeah, I grabbed others too. And we don't need to drink it all."

"So I just want to say, I think this is a really bad idea, but thank you both for being employees," Ruby said under her breath.

"Oh this is a terrible idea!" Jasper agreed with a grin. "But that's what makes it fun!"

Lilac rolled her eyes. "You're lucky I already invited Team PABY here," she said. Both Ruby and Jasper looked at her with wide eyes.

"You...did what now?" Ruby asked quietly.

"Lilac! Spoilsport! Now we can't do the fun..." Jasper started as Lilac heard the bell ring from downstairs. Her eyes went to the window as Blake jumped in, now back in her usual outfit when out of class.

"Whoo! Ruby! Heard that there's a party going on!" Yang's voice shouted from below. Lilac watched as Ruby both groaned with disappointment at knowing what was coming next, but at the same time her eyes glistened with relief. She was not nearly as good at hiding what she was thinking than she thought she was.

"She's up here Yang," Blake called out. "Hey Lilac, Jasper," she said as she sat down on Ruby's bed next to her. "Thanks for inviting us out Lilac. Jaune needed the time."

"Yeah not a problem," Lilac grinned as Jasper glared at her. She gave him a satisfied grin, but he rolled his eyes.

"Hey Rubes, did you know Zwei is trying to break your record?" Yang asked as she came up the stairs. "Pyrrha and Jaune are down there staring at him."

"Yeah, he's been trying to do that ever since I outraced him that one time," Ruby grinned to her sister. "So why-"

"Ooh!" Yang shouted as she stared over at the array of drinks that Jasper had provided. "Sweet, you got the good stuff!"

"Uh...yeah! Only the best for the best," Jasper tried. Lilac rolled her eyes. He should be, if nothing else, thankful to her. She really didn't want to see Ruby get drunk. Not without her sister and Blake there.

And even better, because Pyrrha and Jaune were there. Admittedly, she didn't really know the two that well. She kind of tried to give them as much room as they could have when Jaune tried to hit on her one time, only for her to feel Pyrrha's glare like the stare of a thousand suns.

"You're not actually drinking this, are you Ruby?" Blake asked as she grabbed at one of the beer bottles. "This is worse than the stuff I had in the wilds," she said, not taking a sip of it and just staring at the label.

Yang rolled around to the side that didn't have anyone yet. "Pyrrha, Jaune! Get up here!" she shouted down. "Or we're gonna start pre-drinking before the actual party!"

"I thought pre-drinking only occurred when you weren't at the actual party," Lilac supplied. Yang shrugged.

"Before anyone else comes up with any stupid ideas-" Jasper started to say.

Yang grabbed one of the beer bottles and easily flicked it open. "This is nothing like what's in Junior's bar."

"Yang you trashed that place!" Ruby answered easily. "And that was after asking for a...you're not even old enough!"

"Doesn't seem to have stopped Mr. Jasper here now did it?" Yang smirked. "Besides, he probably just wanted to see some real magic."

Lilac blinked. That didn't make sense. Ruby couldn't do magic if her life depended on it, mostly because the girl was clumsy at best unless by herself surrounded by heat that would make her tail fray out in disarray the moment she even thought about it.

"What are you talking about?" Jasper asked.

"Oh, no worries!" Yang grinned as Blake facepalmed.

"No, guys, she's just talking about the second Semblance thing," Ruby answered. That made more sense. And less sense. There were secrets being kept from her, but honestly...she was okay with that. After the Breach, she was fully committed to just...living her life. She was no Huntress in training.

Lilac shrugged. She was here to protect Ruby from getting drunk at least, although now with Team PABY here she doubted she needed to care. Jasper could get drunk all he wanted. Had done so, multiple times. So had she, really.

But then again, she was also old enough to drink without a problem. But she also knew that Ruby wasn't, and it was so weird when her boss was actually younger than her.

Jaune and Pyrrha made it up the steps a few moments later. "Oh hey, this is where everyone is," Jaune called out as he slid next to Yang. A moment later Lilac had to stifle a giggle as Pyrrha slid next to him, pushing both him and Yang off to the side.

"I definitely didn't bring enough for everyone," Jasper murmured. "It was hard enough finding all this."

"Eh, it's fine! Rubes, you got fruit juice too right?" Yang asked with a grin. Lilac suddenly had the feeling that Yang knew what she was doing with mixed drinks. But where had she ever gotten that skill from?

"Oh, yeah it's in the fridge," Ruby commented. "There's also some chips and salsa in there, feel free to bring those out. And if you'd like you can start the oven!"

Lilac grinned as Jasper started to have to take a deep breath. "Darn it Lilac, I wanted to see what she was like..." he commented under his breath.

"That's why I reached out," Lilac answered back. She could see Blake's ears move on the top of her head, and she gave the other faunus a wink.

Blake winked right back. Maybe there was something there, from at least Blake towards Ruby, but Lilac wouldn't know. "Sweet! Found it! Oven on, to the second high heat right?"

Ruby groaned. "No, to the third low! How are you..." she commented, before she burst into Petal Burst, the small rose petals everywhere. Lilac groaned as some of them got into her hair and into her tail. They would go away with a quick aura burst, but the chance of Ruby remembering that was...slim.

"Fine, spoil my fun," Jasper grinned. Oh, he hadn't taken it personally, and Lilac had definitely wanted him to take it personally. "Pyrrha, Blake, choose your favorites," he said, motioning to the alcohol in front of him.

Pyrrha reached out with slight hesitation, before she jumped up a bit. Blake, too, had her ears point upwards and went towards the window. A large crack had come from the window, as if something had slammed into it.

Jasper sent Lilac another accusing glare, but this time Lilac actually had no ideas. Blake gave a sigh, and opened the window, only for Ruby's uncle Qrow to climb in. "Nice night for a party I see," Qrow said as sat down next to Blake. Who scooted away from him, onto Ruby's pillow.

"Uncle Qrow! How did you know!?" Ruby shouted out from the kitchen. Lilac heard a muffled 'oof' from Yang as she must have grabbed a hot pan without hot pads.

"Well, a little birdy told me that Peabody was coming over here, and I figured there's no reason for that this late at night. So here I am. Good thing I brought things," Qrow smirked as he brought a bag. Lilac wondered where exactly he'd put that originally, because she knew he didn't come in with it.

Then again, he'd also climbed in through the window.

"Oh, what's this? Naughty firecrackers," Qrow smirked as he glanced over the array of stuff that Jasper brought. "Suppose I can't say much, I know how much I let you get away with on Patch."

"Ouch Ruby, how do you do this-" Yang said from the kitchen.

"You just need to use hotpads, they're all over the place-"

"Well. This was turning to be a swell party," Jasper deadpanned as Qrow swapped all of the beer he'd managed to get with root beers. Instantly Pyrrha and Blake grabbed one, doing a small faux cheers with each other.

Lilac shook her head. Trust her employer to have so many crazy antics just in trying to have a party. Admittedly, some of them were her fault, but really, who would have ever guessed that the drunk uncle would have shown up too? Guess it was just...bad luck. She tried to shoot Qrow a quick wink, trying to thank him for his arrival.

Ruby came from the kitchen, hot chicken bake in her hands, which Lilac noticed did not have hotpads, as she put it on the table. "Alright, and that's done and ready to go! Careful, they're hot. Ooh, what're those!?" she asked, staring at some of the more spectacular bottles that Qrow had brought.

"Mocktails," Qrow smirked. "Perfect trying to drink drink without the actual drinking. Leave that part to me," he said, sipping from his flask.

"Mocktails? What are we, seven?" Jasper complained without heat. He turned to Lilac, and whispered under his breath, "Wonder if he knows that's all I brought too. The beer was fake too. Wanted to try to fake Ms. Rose out."

Lilac started to giggle as Qrow took a drink from the 'cocktails' that Jasper had brought before he spat it out instantly. "What is this!?" he shouted as Jasper started chuckling.

An eventful night to be sure, Lilac surmised. She grabbed one of the root beers too, bouncing it against Pyrrha Nikos' and Blake's. "To old times and new ones," she smirked, as Qrow started to chew Jasper out for bringing obviously fake things to a real party. He didn't get far, mostly because Jasper accused Qrow of doing the exact same thing.

Manta Trip

Ruby was finding it hard not to vibrate with both worry and glee.

The employee party last night had been surprisingly fun, and to hear that Jasper had been wanting to try to fake her out had been...not as fun. But Ruby understood it, or so she hoped.

But now she found herself on an Atlas Manta gunship, and she wanted to check out everything on it. She wasn't in the co pilots seat, mostly because she'd never actually flown a plane before but she'd have to figure out how because that was so cool and it had two full on rotary machine guns capable firing 7.62mm armor piercing rounds at nearly thirty rounds a second! And that wasn't including the six missile pods the thing had hanging on the underneath, each capable of firing!

She was excited, and she knew it. Next to her was Uncle Qrow, who was drinking slyly from his flask despite being told by the crew that it wouldn't be allowed. Ruby thought that he was doing it to try and get stuff past Winter, who was on the other side.

On the other side of her was Dad, who had his arms crossed and not at all looking pleased to be there, but Ruby knew it was mostly because she'd almost gotten arrested by Atlas for selling guns and such to the White Fang.

Admittedly, she hadn't actually known who they were when she was selling to them, which she now did a basic check just to make sure that they're either a licensed Hunter or a Hunter-in-Training. And small arms fire weren't really regulated by Vale, mostly because the Grimm were a threat that everyone had to face.

Maybe she was just too strict on that, Ruby wasn't sure.

The pilots were in the front, casually talking to each other about this or that. The board had way too many lights, dials, gauges, and various everything that was way too much information.

Winter Schnee was on the other side, looking just as displeased as her dad to be there. That could have been because Ruby was so excited, and obviously showing it. From what she knew of the Schnees, such a show of emotion was 'below them'.

Ruby didn't care, she had magical powers and her scroll was fully charged and she could continue to design out Sundered Crescent while she was working on all that. And maybe this other person she would be talking with, whoever that older woman was, would know the secret of transformation. She hadn't tried it yet, but she really wanted to.

"Qrow Branwen, I've told you four times already, there is no drinking on the Manta," Winter said snidely.

"I ain't drinking. This is just leftovers from the party last night."

Ruby gave a sigh and tried not to roll her eyes. Good job Qrow, mentioning a party in front of her dad. Then again, he was more open minded about that kind of thing. There was a reason he'd let them both try it when they were younger in the house, to a maximum of a sip of wine each night. Ruby hated it instantly.

"Party, huh? Is that where Yang was?" Taiyang smirked. "I was wondering about that. I almost walked in on something."

Ruby felt herself flush. "Dad...it wasn't like that! It was just Lilac and Jasper's last day, so they wanted to throw a party to celebrate."

"Your...two employees?" Winter asked. Ruby glanced at her and nodded. "I see. Then who's watching your shop?"

Qrow started busting out laughing. "Oh, she got Team PABY to look over it. A long term mission disguised as dog-sitting, and Goodwitch accepted it once she realized that meant that they were having to take care of Zwei!"

Ruby couldn't help herself but start snickering. Yang had been proven that she could watch over Zwei without too many problems, but Jaune and Pyrrha would have no idea what they would be up against. Blake was still terrified of the cuddly little corgi, for some reason, although she was slowly opening up to him. That also meant that they would be out of class for the next week, just until she got back, and get some experience dealing with all the kinds of people she dealt with that they'd probably be dealing with out in the field.

Qrow's idea, naturally, so it was bound to have hiccups along the way, even if the man himself was nowhere nearby.

"Isn't Blake still afraid of Zwei?" Taiyang pointed out, a grin barely off of his face. "And Pyrrha's not gonna have much of a chance. If she accidentally uses her Semblance too much in the shop, that's going to cause havoc."

"That's half the reason Ms. Goodwitch allowed it," Ruby admitted. "Not only is it a long term mission, but they're all effectively held back by the various other things going on. Blake's afraid of Zwei, Pyrrha can't use her Semblance, Yang has to deal with people, and Jaune...well, he gets to learn."

"That sounds almost satisfactory," Winter said quietly from the other side. "I cannot guarantee that Atlas will pick up the tab for having them there, but I cannot imagine General Ironwood would say no."

"I can, really. James seems to like pestering us," Taiyang shrugged.

"Ol' Jimmy's probably shaking in his boots right now," Qrow smirked, taking another sip from his flask. Ruby gave a sigh.

It would be the first time that Ruby was flying to another continent. She'd flown to Vale plenty of times, but Patch and Vale were basically next door neighbors. One of the big reasons Patch was even capable of being semi-autonamous was that it was an island, and ocean Grimm, while massive, generally didn't cause too much havoc for an island as close as Patch was.

Ruby shot forward to the two pilots as soon as she could. They were both in military gear, complete with visors and helmets that probably gave out HUD information. "Hey, look who it is, it's the tiny witch!" the pilot said, looking back with a grin.

"Colonel Arid, please do not call her a 'tiny witch'," Winter admonished from the back.

"Nah, nah, he's fine. You don't take offense do you?" the other co-pilot asked. Ruby shook her head, wondering more than anything how these two knew of the maiden's powers. "Yeah, she's not offended."

"More along the lines of don't let anyone else hear you," Winter kept going anyways.

"Winter seems...not happy to be here," Ruby whispered quietly. "So then why is she?"

"Mostly because you needed an escort, and the General's too busy to do it himself," the pilot answered. "And as she's basically the closest thing we have to a second in command, well, she's it."

"She's the General's second in command?" Ruby asked, looking back at the Schnee.

"I am a Specialist, Colonel Arid, I am not the General's second-in-command."

"Yeah, totally the second in command," the co-pilot answered and interrupted her. "Any case, what brings you up here tiny witch?"

"You're just asking me that to bug Winter, aren't you?" Ruby asked with a sly smile. Both pilots grinned at her and raised their hands for a fist bump with each other. It was hard to withhold the smirk as Winter gave a groan from the back. "That's a yes, then."

"Absolutely. She's fun to mess with. Never lets her hair down, always has to be the best."

"I am a Schnee, we are the best."

"Yeah we've long since stopped seeing her as a Schnee. Now she's just Captain Winter to us," the co pilot answered. "You know what all this is about?" he asked.

Ruby shook her head. "No, I have no idea. I wanted to see more of the ship, and I have to say your rotary miniguns are awesome."

"Right!?" The pilot raised both of his hands. The ship stayed stable, so they probably had some kind of auto-pilot engaged. "I told you those guns were amazing. And they thought I was crazy for wanting railguns."

"Rotary railguns!" Ruby shouted in excitement. The power requirement would be positively insane, but just think of the damage potential! It could cut straight through goliath without any problems!

"I'm going to start drooling now," the pilot warned as he relaxed into the seat.

"Great, now you have him thinking about railguns. At least you didn't think railcannons."

"Rotary railcannons would be impossible on a ship this size," Ruby answered, "but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be amazing!" Think about it, you could just point it at something, and whatever you point it at just stops existing!"

"Maybe you should stop trying to scare Winter off with the weapons talk," Qrow said from the back. "I can see her blood pressure rising from here."

"The Manta's are equipped with state of the art technology, there are no need for upgrades!"

Ruby disagreed. "There's always room for upgrades. Even at the Vytal Festival when I was working on Yang's Ember Celica, I was thinking of ways to upgrade it. I already found ways to upgrade Crescent Rose, and the Sundered Rose Copy."

"Speaking of, where is your scythe?" Taiyang asked quietly. "You've reforged it by now, right?"

Ruby shook her head. "No, not yet. I've wanted to, but I also want to make it better. The fight against Cinder taught me that all of the weapons I make have a distinctive weakness."

"I hardly think that 'melting at high temperatures' is a distinctive weakness," Winter replied tonelessly.

"But it is! What if there are others with Semblances that can go hotter than Cinder's? What if people have to fight in Vacuo, and the day goes that hot at noon?"

"Then they're probably dead," the co pilot answered. "Most metals melt at...what, how many degrees over boiling?"

"A lot," Ruby shook his worries away with a wave of her hand, "but that's not the point. The weapons themselves can all melt. I want to find a way to prevent that. And Sundered Crescent is the first step, but I need to find the right material first."

"Ah," Winter stated softly. "Well...perhaps Atlas could assist you. We do have the best facilities for hardlight dust production."

"Hardlight only does so much," Ruby answered, "it's not the answer to everything. Like what if the generator itself starts to fail because of the heat? It can still be cut in half. Even the hardlight generators I used in that one sword copy-"

"What sword copy?" Qrow asked, his eyebrow raised in not so disguised disinterest.

"Oh, one of the commissions from the Vytal Festival. He wanted a sword that would make hardlight copies of the edge as his ranged weapon," Ruby commented idly.

Winter's eyes widened. "You can do that? Not even our best technicians could-"

Ruby stared at her, before she shrugged. "It's not that hard per se. See, the key is having six generators rather than one, or one generator with six repeaters built within the sword frame itself. He wanted six generators rather than one, which I guess makes sense. Less individual dust consumption but higher quality."

"Uh...are we getting a dust lesson while flying this thing?" the co pilot asked quietly. The pilot nodded mutely.

"But hardlight dust starts to decay once it reaches certain closeness of other hardlight dust! That's part of the reason it's only useful as barriers!" Winter retorted.

"Not if you shield it!" Ruby grinned. "See, hardlight dust does give off some radiation, and it's that radiation that interferes with other hardlight dust, but if you shield the interior of the generators or repeaters with a non-permeable metal, or use dust that's all from the same crystal, then it stops the decay!"

"...I'm a bit old to be schooled at dust knowledge by a sixteen year old aren't I?" Dad asked Qrow roughly. "I didn't just get told of a new application of hardlight by my own daughter, right?"

"Tai...I have no idea what I'm listening to," Qrow said.

"Oh come on, none of you have tried it!?"

"Firecracker...none of us have forged anything but our own weapons in years. Remember, Harbinger barely even uses dust," Qrow reminded.

"I don't even use that much," Taiyang answered. "Winter?"

"My blades are still broken from the fight against Cinder. Tell me you can remake them?" Winter asked, derailing all thoughts that Ruby had.

Really, the Atlas Sabers or whatever weapon she'd been using were still gone? Huh. That's odd, but she couldn't have asked at a better time.

"How long do we have until Atlas?" Ruby asked the pilots.

"We have uh...six hours and thirteen minutes eta," the co pilot answered instantly.

"We have six hours and thirteen minutes to come up with a workable design, and then I'll need a forge," Ruby smirked. "I'm still a weaponsmith, no matter why you want me here."

Impromptu dust lesson by a girl who uses it on a nearly daily basis. Who knew she actually knows what she's talking about?

Until Next Time!

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

To Atlas

The following hours went by ridiculously fast in Ruby's mind, and if anything from the somewhat shocked looks on Dad and Uncle Qrow's faces, they've never actually seen her when she was in 'working mode'. She slipped into the mindset she had on Amity Arena easily enough. There was a strict time limit, and she was, if nothing else, quite good at working on a time limit.

By the time they landed in Atlas, Ruby and Winter had already come up with a workable design based around the same similar weapon types as what Winter used previously. A single dagger that she could use in one hand, locked into a saber with the other.

But Ruby would improve on the design. A gravity dust chain connected the two, so even if she was disarmed of one as long as she maintained a hand on the other, she could recall it back to her hand. That was starting to become a regular feature, Ruby noticed after a while.

The saber itself would be much the same, except at the base where it could fire small pistol ammunition at whatever she was pointing the sword at. The dagger, on the other hand, was almost pure dust based. It's gun shaft was much bigger than the saber's, and in comparison used bigger ammunition, and it would be easier to swap out the dust in each one, while having the dust affect the blade too.

And when connected, the dust of the dagger affected the dust type of the saber, along with both ammunition types if fired at the same time, allowing a whopping four shots with a single blow, and potentially going off at the same time as a saber strike. Winter was already fairly strong, combine that with her Semblance, and Ruby knew that she'd be hard to beat. More so than she already was. Now all she needed was a forge, plenty of dust, and plenty of metal.

She was thinking a titanium steel chromium alloy, keeping it's strength up in the cold Atlesian tundra. Mix the hilt with a secondary alloy of gold, which is notorious for being able to handle extreme temperatures on both sides of the equation, and it could be used even within Vacuo without any problems.

"You know, if I didn't know any better, I'd just say that she impressed Winter," Qrow muttered as they started to dock the ship into the landing pad. Winter was up front, with the door shut between her and the two pilots, and both her dad and Uncle Qrow and her in the back.

"I'd say. You impressed me, that's for sure. Been a long time since I've seen you work. I think the last was when you forging Crescent Rose for the third time," Dad said with a sly smile. "So, you have Team PABY to watch over the shop."

Ruby nodded, trying not to say how much the comments sent blood to her face. She wasn't used to people telling her that she was impressive. Except for Nora. And the special powder that she'd made. She was used to that one, if only because of the not quite pyromaniac's biggest displays.

"Aren't you afraid of Blake reading through all your books?" Qrow smirked from the side, before he realized that her dad was right there.

"What's wrong with reading those books?" Taiyang asked accusingly. "I know what kind of books Blake reads, and I know Ruby doesn't have any of them."

Ruby wasn't going to tell him at any time that she'd been reading those books for ages. That was an instant 'never telling Dad' type of thing.

Qrow, too, seemed to realize he messed up. "Oh, yeah, of course not. I just meant that's how she invites her over!" he tried to dodge by throwing Ruby under the bus.

"Right. I don't believe you. When we get back, Ruby, I'm looking through your book stash."

"Trust me when I say I have no knowledge of what he speaks," Ruby lied easily. "And besides, half of the time Blake invites herself over. And Jaune comes over to play Grimm Kart. And Pyrrha joins him. Yang when she's bored."

"All the time, then."

"All the time. Just ask any of them, they'll be able to tell you," Ruby said, hoping against hope that he wouldn't call. If he did, she had to hope Blake or Yang answered. Pyrrha was too nice to not know what books she shouldn't be saying, and Jaune too oblivious. Although really, maybe she should let those two into her collection...they might learn something.

"I might do that," Dad narrowed his eyes.

"Ms. Rose. The General will see to you first, and then afterwards I will show you where you, your father, and...Qrow. Will be staying," Winter said as the door opened. She hesitated on Qrow's name, something that even Ruby knew would not be working out in her favor.

"Aw, I'm not bunking with you this time? I remember the hammock, you didn't like that?" Qrow teased, a smirk on his face.

Winter's eyes narrowed as she took a deep breath. "No. I did not. Please excuse me," Winter said as she walked out of the Manta, the side of the ship opening up with the ramp coming out.

"Heh," Qrow laughed as she did. "She hasn't forgotten yet. Still needs to lighten up though."

"We'd tell her that, sir, but she'd probably find some way to reduce us to transport personnel only," the pilot said quietly. "Looks like we have the full red carpet for you three today. The Ace Ops are showing you around," the pilot answered. "They're right outside."

Ruby took a deep breath and started to walk down the ramp. The landing pads of Atlas were surrounded by the military academy of Atlas, the long pure steel towers rising into the sky as if touch and break the stars themselves. The landing pads were hundreds of Manta's and Bullheads, spread throughout a large field. There were multiple stories to each one, as if Atlas was keen on trying to save as much space as possible.

The air was freezing cold, and Ruby realized what Weiss had meant the one time that she had mentioned that Atlas was quite cold. Even inside the Atlas landing pads, she could see her breath the instant that it came out. The ramp was fortunately not freezing as Ruby stepped down onto it, and it fact it was kind of bouncy. At the base of the ramp was a team of five, odd to see in any team.

One looked like Qrow, except much larger in the shoulders and much taller. Ruby couldn't see a weapon on him, but that didn't mean much. The woman next to him was just as big, if not bigger in terms of muscle, with a large hammer that made Ruby want to check it out and see how it compared to Nora's Magnhild. Next to her was a much more slender man, looking almost as if the people around him didn't concern him, but it wasn't as if he was brushing them off, just that not much really concerned him. On the other side of the big man was a much shorter woman, nearly half the height of...well, she wasn't sure if he was the leader or not, but he was definitely in the middle.

She didn't have an obvious weapon either, but there was some kind of backpack on her to her arms and legs. Maybe some kind of technical Semblance? And the last guy was...well, he was the most normal of the bunch. A dog faunus, she could barely tell by the tail wagging behind him even as he stayed perfectly still, with...

That was a prototype of the boomerang weapon. It was literally a boomerang weapon! Right there! She could see it!

She rushed over to it ignoring the big man as he started to talk. "I have to see it I have to see it it looks so cool I bet you could so many cool things with it that's so awesome you could just go woosh and then it's gone and-"

"Wow. I think you have some serious competition there Harriet," the big man chuckled, as the much shorter woman gave a low growl. The dog faunus took a step back, obviously not enjoying the attention.

Ruby took a step back once she realized how fast she'd gotten straight into his weapon's face. And maybe his. "Oh, sorry. Just...weapons," Ruby grinned. He gave a soft smile of his own.

"Well then, we should probably introduce weapons first then, seeing as how that's you'll remember us by," the big man grinned again as Qrow and her dad finished going to the bottom of the ramp. "I'm Clover, and this is Kingfisher," he said, grinning as he brought out a fishing pole.

Ruby immediately started seeing uses for it. The fishing line was super thin, and it could just as easily wrap around a bad guy or Grimm that it could with a fish. And the pole had to be made of something super amazing and fantastic like some sweet special Atlas metal that she'd never heard of befo-

"It's a fishing pole," Qrow said easily. "It's a fishing pole. Don't get your hopes up kiddo, it's just a fishing pole."

Ruby's hopes and dreams were dashed. Clover grinned and shrugged. "It gets the job done," he said easily.

The woman next to him, the really tall one, grinned. "Then this is Timber, and I'm Elm," she said, grinning as she pointed to the hammer.

Ruby could tell that it was some kind of mechashift, but what it turned into was...hold on, she could see the small area designed for large charges to go into. Something explosive based, but the explosion didn't happen in the chamber itself, so some kind of rocket.

This was a rocket launcher hammer.

She was introducing Elm to Nora at the first opportunity. There were no exceptions to this.

"I'm going to introduce you to my friend. She will want to see the rocket," Ruby commented easily, "as do I. How many explosions can you do, how fast do the rockets go, how do you get the extra force out of the hammer can you explode the rockets backwards-"

"Slow down, Ruby. We have a week," Taiyang said easily. "You can introduce yourself to their weapons later. You're here to take us to the General then?"

"Indeed we are. I am Vine," the thin man on the furthest side said. "Perhaps we should go, and introduce ourselves on the way," he asked Clover.

"Probably not a bad idea," Clover said. "Here, follow me. Harriet, Marrow?" he asked.

The short woman looked up Ruby up and down. "I bet I'm faster than you. Name's Harriet, and I'm always up for a race," she smirked.

"And uh...I'm Marrow. You've already found Fetch," the dog faunus said gently. "It's..."

"A dog pun. I love it," Dad said jovially. "Reminds me of home."

"A bit too much if I have to say," Ruby deadpanned. "How many-"

"A lot," Harriet answered before Ruby could actually ask the question. "We get a lot of them. We're immune."

Clover led them through the areas throughout the Atlas, the corridors looking exactly the same as all the others, long gray endless blobs of gray, only occasionally interrupted by another door. It wasn't until they got to what was obviously the headmaster's office that they began to see some change, the formless concrete changing to a more wooden nature. The stairs lead to the top with a large door, and Clover opened it up easily.

A large room surrounded by windows and a large desk, with a few hand prints dented into it, looking oddly a lot like Ozpin's office, minus the generic clockwork on top.

General Ironwood himself was standing in front of the desk, looking over a few holoscreens, before he turned. His eyes hardened as they stared at Ruby, before he sighed and sat down on his desk, his fingers running over his eyes.

Fria

"Ace Ops," Ironwood called out casually as soon as the door shut, "You can leave. Except for Clover and Winter, none of you are read in on this," Ironwood said quietly.

"I just shut the door too..." Marrow complained as he opened it back up, walking out followed by Harriet, Elm, and Vine. Clover stayed behind on the inside, making sure the door was shut before he stood tall and professional.

"Ms. Rose," Ironwood said quietly. "You know that I don't like you, and I know you know the reasons for that-"

"Was it because of the gun running, or the fact that she did more of the defense of both Vale and Beacon than all of Atlas did?" Qrow interjected. Ruby shot him a glare. Just because she actually did those things didn't mean that's why she did it!

She did it because she was a Huntress in training, and that was what Huntresses did.

Well, except the gun running. That was a legitimate thing that she should have known better, but admittedly it's not like the White Fang told her out easily that 'hi we're the White Fang, we want to buy your guns'.

"Mostly because of the gun running," Ironwood complained, "So thank you for that, Branwen."

"You're welcome Jimmy."

Taiyang gave a soft groan. "So now that you've let out your grievances, why are we here?" he asked, staring hard.

"You're here because Ruby is a minor," Ironwood offered up instantly, "And because the Winter Maiden, Fria, wanted to talk with her."

"Wait, Winter's not the Winter Maiden?" Qrow asked. "But common nomenclature says that she should be!"

"Not everyone's jobs are decided by their names, Qrow," Winter added.

"Admittedly, if Fria passes in the next few years, she might be," Ironwood shrugged, "but it's not something we like planning for. Fria took the Winter Maiden condition long before I or my predecessor was General of the Atlas military, and for a long time she lived out in the wilds by her lonesome."

"'Perhaps, General, it would be best to let her speak to Ruby first?" Winter interrupted. General Ironwood blinked, before he gave a slight cough and nodded. "This way," she said, turning on the spot and grabbing a small book out from the library around.

The shelf opened inwards into another of the formless gray halls. "You know, I've always wanted to know...when people do that, what happens if they need to actually read that book?" Qrow asked.

"Summer wanted to install one too in our house," Dad smirked as they all moved to follow. Ruby's ears caught her mom's name and started to pay more attention. "When I asked her that, all she said was 'we'll leave it blank, that way Ruby or Yang would have no idea what it was. And we'll put on the sides horribly big words that no one knows about so they'll be even less interested."

"And that worked?" Qrow asked with a grin.

"We don't have one! Come on Qrow, you've been around long enough to know that much," Dad was grinning. "But I do think it would have worked."

"We would have figured it out eventually," Ruby commented. Well...truth be told, neither she nor Yang would have been the biggest of readers as kids. Yang was always out trying to find another tree to punch, and Ruby was more about engineering books than anything. As long as it didn't have any words that interested her, she would have left it alone. And as long as it didn't sound like a fantasy story that Yang would have liked, Ruby doubted she'd have tried it either.

"I'm sure you would have," Dad grinned, not believing her for a second.

The hallway stretched on, until finally they hit a small door off on the side, slightly non-descript. "This is the entrance to her wing," Winter offered, punching in a bunch of numbers on the pad off to the side.

After far too many numbers, about twelve or thirteen by Ruby's best guess, the door slid open with a slight hiss. The air in the hallway was kinda warm, but the air out of the room? Freezing cold. "Ruby only, past this point," Winter said.

"Wait, we can't go in?" Qrow asked. "Then what's the point of bringing us?"

"That's not me telling you that, it's her," Winter said, standing up as professionally tall as she could. She stared into Ruby's eyes harshly. "Go on in."

Ruby raised an eyebrow. "I'll be fine!" Ruby grinned, trying to cheer up her uncle and Dad before she burst into her Semblance into the room.

The door slid shut behind her.

It was fairly large, by all rights. A small kitchen off to the side, complete with refrigerator and freezer, and stove. An actual wall to the main living room, which had a large medical bed that were often used in hospitals off on the side. A large holoscreen was playing some kind of soap opera. Various used dishes lay around, and off in the corner Ruby could see a ginormous bathroom. Various pieces of artwork lay on the walls, showing things from landscapes to animals, to even Hunters fighting the Grimm.

It looked like a hospital room, if she had to be honest. "Oh come on Salvador, you know that Erica's not the right woman for you!" the woman in the bed said as she stared at the screen.

Ruby glanced at her. She was pale, old, and with the remains of a bathroom robe on her. "Winter?" she asked after a moment, before she looked at Ruby. "Oh, you're not Winter. Hold on, I'll pause it," she said, flicking her wrist to the side of her bed, a remote flowing freely into her hand.

Ruby barely caught the movement of the wind. Fria was good at it.

"So," the woman started, sitting up gently as she had the hospital bed sit her up. "You're Ruby Rose. The new Fall Maiden."

"Um...I am, ma'am. Fria. Ma'am," Ruby started, stuttering a bit.

Fria nodded for a second, before she looked off in the distance. "These powers suck." Ruby couldn't help the giggle that broke out. Fria grinned with her. "I'm being quite serious," she said. "But I'll admit, they are surprisingly useful. How was the weather outside?"

"Cold. Rather freezing, actually."

"Oh good, so no change," Fria said easily. "I hope that Atlas doesn't change much. How's Mantle, no longer in the realms of a civil war anymore?"

"I...don't know?"

"Well, then let's hope so then," Fria muttered. "How far have you gotten in your training?"

"Training? People have training in these things!?"

Fria started to laugh loudly, before she started to cough for a moment. "Oh, hurts to laugh like that," she muttered. "But yes, people are supposed to have training with these powers. Even the supposed Maiden after me, Winter, is supposedly going through the training. Your transfer wasn't like that?"

Ruby shook her head. "No, it was more spur of the moment thing. Ozpin asked me, then I spent a few days thinking about it because Amber was-"

"I've heard what happened to Amber, yes. It's quite sad. She was such a hearty young girl. Oddly entranced with setting things on fire, but then I suppose the Fall Maiden's powers went to the right person," Fria said gently. "And she didn't tell you how to use them during the transfer?"

"No, she was more concerned with telling me about the ambush and lighting the world on fire."

"That does sound like her, yes," Fria admitted. "I trained her, you know, around ten years ago I think? Maybe longer, maybe shorter. It was when Mantle was starting to rise up with the White Fang."

Ruby blinked. That's right, the White Fang had started in Mantle, hadn't they? How long ago was that, ten years? Eleven years ago. Yeah, eleven. "Eleven years ago."

"How time flies...and still Salvador and Arla don't just get married," Fria complained. "I hate soap operas, but this one got my attention and now I just can't let it go," she murmured.

"How did you come into the powers?" Ruby hesitated to ask.

"Well, that was a funny thing. See, the powers can only be transferred to a woman who is less than thirty years old. No one knows why," Fria muttered.

Ruby added that to the 'ask Ozpin' list.

"But it was a long, long time ago. My family had been the guardians of the power, for a long time. Many generations, in fact. It was considered our Semblance, for the longest time, even though only one person could use it at a time," Fria explained. "So my grandmother had it before I did, and she explained to my mother and me how the powers worked."

"Your mom...she was okay with it?"

"She didn't want it anyways," Fria gave another laughing cough. "She wanted to go to Vacuo where it was warm all the time! She did, of course, as soon as I received the powers. I was fourteen at the time. But I loved Solitas, as a young child. I always have, and always will."

"So naturally when it came to that I was joining Atlas Academy, right before the breakout of the Great War, that the General at the time realize that something was different about my Semblance. I explained it was hereditary, but only one person in my family could use it at a time. He checked with a few other headmasters, shortly before the tensions broke out, and he realized that I was the Winter Maiden."

"You've been here for nearly eighty years!?"

Fria gave another laugh. "No, child, I have not. I fought in the Great War as with many others. I believed in Atlas then, and I believe in it now. Ironwood's predecessor, General Bronzehand, trusted in me to keep the powers safe, and it was at his recommendation, nearly seventy years after Atlas lost the Great War, to come into this chamber. And to wait, for the next inevitable Winter Maiden."

"Still, that's ten years! You've been in here for ten years!"

"Yes, I suppose I have. It wasn't all bad though. I have two daughters, whom I'm lucky enough to have both still alive, and with grandchildren of their own. I had a son, whom I was extremely proud of but he never made it far, and he died to a Grimm attack twenty years ago. I have lived a full life, Ruby Rose. It's time I give back to Atlas, and to Mantle."

"I'm...sorry to hear of your son."

"Oh, that's nice of you, but thinking of him doesn't make me so sad anymore. He'll probably join me as soon as I reach the other side, and he'll yell at me, 'Mother! What did I say about coming here so quick!?'" Fria laughed, before she started to cough again. Ruby looked around, hoping to find some kind of water or liquid for her, before she stopped coughing on her own, taking a sip of water from the other counter. "So tell me, Ruby...how far have you come?"

"Basic elements. I can get wind to listen to me but it's rather...unwieldy."

"I've heard Fall was like that," Fria muttered. "Amber mentioned it when I trained her. Fall does not bring the soft cool breezes or the gentle snowfall of winter, nor does it bring the warm sun of summer. No, Autumn is a harsh season, Ruby Rose. It a season of storms. Of fires, of lightning, of floods and suddenness. It is the season of change."

"Can you teach me? How to do what you do? Or some of the other tricks, like transformation!?"

Fria opened her eyes at her, "Girl...no, Ruby, I have never heard of that."

"It's where you transform into an animal. I'm hoping to learn how to do a wolf!"

"...You learn something new every day," Fria laughed. "No, Ruby, I have no knowledge of how to do any of that. But attacks and general tips...now that, Ruby..." she said, her eyes starting to burn with a blue frozen flame. "Now that I can do."

One of these days I should go through and really find a way to put down all the names I came up with while reading the chapters...

Until Next Time!

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Unwelcome Visitors

Zwei, the best of the best, stood his ground against the evils of the 'Point Of Sale' machine, whatever it was that it was. Best dog-walker was gone, and now pseudo best dog walker was currently being the walker of the shops. Favorite friend was next to her, reading some of the strange books that best dog walker kept around.

He wasn't sure why that was, but favorite friend didn't like him, and that meant he just had to work harder to make sure that favorite friend would end up loving him, exactly as all the others would! And did. For he was Zwei, the rambunctious rowdier! Wait, he wasn't sure on that one. He'd have to rethink that. R was a good one, it reminded him of best dog walker.

The other two, as he labeled them in his mind, were upstairs trying to come up with how best dog walker actually did the things she did. Zwei didn't think it was that hard. For he was Zwei, the Knowledgeable Know-It-All!

Wait, wasn't that an insult? Hmm, he'd have to work on that one. Coming up with decent titles for himself was always the hardest part of this. But he was Zwei, the Boisterous Brilliance! Oh, that was a good one! He'd have to remember that one. Even best dog walker could remember that one!

His pillow was soft and fluffy, and he really wanted favorite friend to share it with him. She was best dog walker's friend for sure, and she'd be around a lot, and has been around a lot. Best find a way to solve their dispute without him going all dog-like on her. For he was Zwei, the Chivalrous! A second word would be best, but it didn't really fit, now did it...? He could smell the poison flowers that was part of her scent, just as he could smell the bird shampoo that pseudo best dog walker often used to cover up her mane of gray.

"Think Ruby's having fun at least?" Pseudo best dog walker asked. Of course she was having fun! Best dog walker had all the fun, like the time she helped him beat up Ash Lady. She had smelled of darkness, death, and ash. So naturally, Zwei had come up with the best nickname for her. Ash lady!

"I wouldn't be surprised. She's learning magic. From one of the only people who could. I'm more worried about Jaune and Pyrrha, upstairs all day," Favorite Friend commented idly. Why would favorite friend be worried about those two? Zwei knew nothing untoward was going on, although he could smell the attraction between them, but his senses were much sharper than the others. For he was Zwei, the Sensory Skilled!

Ooh that was another one. He'd have to save that one for Angie too. The way she had kicked up so high in the air...yes, he had found his trusted one. Although Fishy was...still there. But then again, just as he would do for best dog walker, Angie would do for Fishy.

"Why? It's not hard, it's just numbers. Pyrrha's practically a genius, second only to Weiss. She shouldn't have any trouble with Ruby's logs," pseudo best dog walker shrugged. "They aren't that hard, from what I've seen."

"You've seen her logs?"

"Yeah? They're just kind of out in the open up there."

"Last time I saw them, Ruby had them coded."

"Oh, she does," pseudo best dog walker answered. "But it's a pretty universal code used for most financial things. Did the White Fang not use something similar?"

"...No, no we didn't," favorite friend said. Her scent changed a bit, and it was hard for Zwei to describe. Like her poison flower scent suddenly became much clearer, and much closer to her head.

But Zwei knew what that much meant. For he was Zwei, the Feeling Facilitator! Ooh, that was another good one. He got up, gave a nice long stretch on the counter, ignoring pseudo best dog walker when she tried to push him off of the counter, before he sauntered over to favorite friend and put his head on her lap. She didn't need to be embarrassed!

Favorite friend froze up, as if he was Zwei, the Magnanimous Monster! Oh, she didn't need to do that, he wasn't a monster, he was just Zwei! "Zwei, please don't put your head my leg."

"Pyrrha, you want to take Zwei upstairs with you? He's bothering Blake again!" Pseudo best dog walker yelled upstairs. Zwei tilted his head. Why would she send him upstairs? It wasn't yet feeding time, and unfortunately between the four of them he had yet to figure out how to erase the dreaded and meaningful calendar to get fed by each one.

Oh but he'd manage it! By the time best dog walker came back, he'd have all four of them feeding his bowl whenever he wanted! It would be the best life of all best lives!

The bell jingled, and...Zwei felt his hackles raise. Even if Magnet Girl came down to pick him up, he would refuse to leave.

A giant walked in, but not favorite friend's father. No, he wasn't much bigger than favorite friend's father, but there was a scent of depression around him, and a scent of dust. Zwei knew the scent of dust well, but unlike best dog walker who kept hers locked up, this man's was just all around him.

The man behind him was much smaller, and Zwei smelled the scent that made him so much on edge. The scent of blood, and something wrong with his head. The desert, or something similar to it. Poison, that's what it was that Zwei smelled.

"Welcome to Summer's Weapon Shop!" Pseudo best dog walker greeted. Zwei had never understood why they'd be greeting these people, sniffing people's butts was so much easier, and there was so much more information there! Limited to words, Zwei knew they were.

"Summer? I thought the owner's name was Ruby," the giant answered. "Looks like he was wrong again," he spoke to his companion.

"It wouldn't have been the first," the companion said, his eyes wide as he looked around. Zwei lifted his head from favorite friend's leg, staring at the companion the most.

"Her name is Ruby, she's just not here at the moment. She's the weaponsmith, Summer's just her mom," Pseudo best dog walker kept going. Bad idea pseudo best dog walker! Bad idea, very bad idea! These two were trouble, and he'd trounce them even if he didn't have to! For he was Zwei, the Trouncing Troubadour!

Ooh, he liked that one too.

"I see. When will she be back?" the giant asked.

"I know! How about we leave her a message!?" the companion asked, and Zwei felt a growl leave his throat.

"Zwei!" favorite friend chided him. "I'm sorry about him, he's usually better with new people."

Why was she apologizing for him!? She didn't need to apologize for him! He was Zwei, the apologetic acolyte! He didn't need to apologize to anyone that didn't deserve it, and these two didn't deserve it!

"No," the giant said, tossing a massive hand down on his companion's shoulder. "We're just here to check out the shop, and maybe get some dust while we're at it."

"You always ruin my fun."

"Dust's over in the corner. Each one has a different purity value, and Ruby's already measured it out," Pseudo best dog walker said.

"Just one little nick? It wouldn't hurt anyone," the companion lied. Zwei knew it was a lie, because the man's heart rate went up in excitement that collaborated with a lie. The corgi pushed his aura to the surface, ready to charge in should these try something.

They reminded him of Ash Lady, except slightly worse. Not stronger, not crazier, because Ash Lady wasn't in the right state of mind. But they had the same scent as that of Ash Lady, at least underneath, if they spent time around the same person.

And anyone who spent time around Ash Lady wasn't a person that Zwei wanted to have around. For he was Zwei, the Paranoia Paragneur! No, he didn't know what that one meant either. He would have to go workshop that one, look up the P's again.

"No. Calm yourself," the giant answered. "We're not here to cause trouble."

It was at those words that pseudo best dog walker and favorite friend finally realized how much trouble they were in, and slowly unsheathed their weapons. If only they were like Zwei, the Merciless Master! Wait, he'd already used master. Shoot. Maestro? Merciless Maestro. Yeah, that one worked!

"Phooey. Guess I'll go and look around outside. Maybe cause a bit of fun that way!"

"No. She said not to, remember?"

"I think we're going to have to ask both of you to leave," favorite friend said quietly, her voice echoing throughout the shop nonetheless.

"Ha! Trying to ask me, the servant of our Goddess herself to leave!? What nerve you-" the companion started saying, before the giant's hand went on his shoulder again. He froze.

"We leave now, then," the giant man said. He gave a soft bow as he pulled his companion out of the shop.

Zwei kept his aura pushed up until the soft jingle of the bell passed again, and while he could still smell them, as if they were in the room still, he knew they weren't. The scent was faint, and fading quick. He'd be able to pick up on it anywhere now.

For he was Zwei, the Scentiful Scientist! He could deduce any scent from any amount at any time! Yes, he was the best there was. He was definitely the reason that they were scared off, for no other reason than that.

Magnet girl jumped the last few steps. "Who was that?" she asked as she landed near silently. But it was only he, Zwei, the Sensational Sentry, that could hear her! Most definitely not favorite friend, and he doubted pseudo best dog walker heard anything.

Favorite friend slowly stowed away her loud noise machine and gun. Or was it loud noise machine and other? Zwei didn't know, he barely remembered anything about even best dog walker's cannon except that it was loud, and it required very specific types of ammunition, which he was not to touch in any way shape or form.

Especially if he had to go to the bathroom really bad on it. Which, hey, he wasn't touching it so why would best dog walker care?

"Don't know. But something about them gave me the creeps," pseudo best dog walker stated. "We should alert Ruby before she comes back. Does she have some kind of alarm system?"

"She did," favorite friend answered. "But I don't think she gets visuals, or if it's even turned on during the daytime hours."

"Blake, work on that," magnet girl commanded, her voice harsh and quick. Zwei looked up. She was giving orders now!? Ooh, what was his order? For he was Zwei, the Onerous Officer! Whatever order she came up with, he could do!

Unless it went against best dog walker. And maybe Angie too, if he really wanted to go that far but really it was just best dog walker.

What could he say? She was the best dog walker, and he liked getting walkies. And if something happened to her, he'd be trapped here with pseudo best dog walker, or worse, Pun Face.

He was ever so glad that Pun Face left. Really, his nickname was actually supposed to be Fire Face, because he smelled like the Blacksmith that occasionally best dog walker smelled like, but after she complained a bit too much to him about the puns, he naturally started calling him Pun Face instead.

So much quicker, too! And much easier for him to say.

"Yang, look around the shop and see if you can't find any clues as to who those two were. Jaune and I finished upstairs, so after I go through the codes...again...for the fifth time...I'll send him down here."

"Five? Pyrrha, those codes aren't hard."

"They make no sense! Why is dust one code, and then red dust another!?"

Pseudo best dog walker sighed. "Pyrr...stay here and man the counter. I'll work with Jaune on the finances part..." she said as she started to go up the stairs.

Zwei pouted for a moment. There was no order for him. But that meant he was now Zwei, the Fallacious Freelancer!

Wait, that was a bad one wasn't it. He'd have to workshop that one, he thought as he went back to his bed, curling up to sleep again.

Forging Sabers

"The key with all things magic is that it is a freeflowing energy of the world. You can't control it, you merely contain it, and ask it to do things for you."

Fria had told her that. Fria had told her a lot of things. But that didn't stop Ruby from sighing. Very little of what Fria had said actually made any amount of sense.

"Magic is everywhere. You yourself hold two pieces of it, long before you ever even knew of the maiden's powers."

"What were those?"

"Your Semblance...and your aura."

Her Semblance, Petal Burst, and her aura. Supposedly those were magical. She could understand, really, because Semblance sounded a lot like 'resemblance', as if a knock off or a cheap offshoot.

As if someone could compare SDC Dust to Vitaglow Dust. There was no comparison there, but there was a cheap 'resemblance'. Did that mean all Semblances were based off of magic? That could effectively mean that anyone who could perform actual magic, like Qrow or Fria, could supposedly do every Semblance in existence. At the same time.

She wanted to learn how to do that, if only to have that rocket powered rocket launcher that fired rocket powered rocket launchers to fire more rockets actually exist!

But no, the rocket launcher cubed was a far sign of anything barring reality. That's something that would involve duplication dust, and that just didn't exist. She could, effectively, use hardlight and gravity dust to mimic the effect, but...

Wait! Bad Ruby!

She wasn't here to think about how to make nearly impossible things work, she was here to make one thing work.

Specifically, Winter's sabers. She'd been with Fria for nearly three days straight, and as much information that Fria could tell, and Ruby had taken notes on it thank you very much, that didn't mean much when most of what she did was sit down with her and watch that freaking soap opera.

Although she had to admit, she would be sad to miss out on the latest story line. Charlie had it coming, and she really wanted to see how pissed off Ember would be when she found out. Too bad they didn't get that particular soap over in Vale. She might have tried to watch it on her own time.

Wait, no! Bad Ruby!

Right, she had to be forging. This was forging time, this wasn't the time to be experimenting with magic, although Fria had told her the only way to get better was to use the powers.

This was time for weaponsmith Ruby.

She had to push a couple of older blacksmiths, the one's mostly responsible for most of the metalsmithing for the Atlas military, out of the forge. Ironwood hadn't liked it, but he'd understood when Fria had mentioned that she wanted Ruby to use the power to help her forging.

In reality, it was mostly because Ruby had done it alone for so long she'd almost forgotten what it was like when other people were in the room. Although using magic was a good excuse, and one she wouldn't soon forget.

This was going to be amazing. This was going to have to be amazing.

This may be her one and only chance to repair any amount of good will with Atlas. And despite the fact that she lived in Vale, and thus nowhere near Atlas, they were still a good near quarter of the world, and where the SDC was based off of. She had no doubt they could pull off some big problems for her.

The steel ingots were set, and rather than just using the forge to increase the temperature, she focused on the maiden's powers, swirling around in her aura.

She'd been afraid, at first, of Amber or Cinder being in her aura. Of mixing with her. They weren't. Their auras were gone, their minds back to whatever happened to souls when people died. The powers were the only thing left, and the only reason for that is because it was pure energy in a contained form.

The maiden's powers weren't purely elemental, but elemental was definitely the easiest by far. Wind was the easiest for her, with lightning a second. Fire for third, and water at dead last. She imagined it was because she was much like the wind and lightning herself. Quick, never there when anyone was expecting her, and her Semblance was rose petals as she sped around.

"Salutations Ruby!" A voice shouted from behind her.

"Gragh!?" Ruby shouted in surprise. Fire came from every corner of every angle, and it was with a calming heart and soothing rain from the sprinkler system...although it was dirty as heck they need to clean those things...that she looked around behind her.

Orange hair, green dress. Ten swords arrayed near her. Oh right, Floating Array! Which meant that this was Penny!

"Hi Penny," Ruby said, looking back at the steel. The sprinklers had started to sauna up the room, and she'd thought the room would be fireproof considering it was a...well, a forge. With lots of fire. And t hings that water could damage if it got in the wrong places, such as any place a sprinkler could reach.

"What are you making? Are you attempting to add magic into your crafting?" Penny asked with a naive tone. Ruby blinked. Why...was she asking? The last time she'd seen Penny personally, before the Vytal Festival Tournament at least, was when Penny was attempting to get her to tell her everything she knew about Neo and Torchwick.

She had, not because she'd wanted to but because by then she had been so tired that it had seemed useless to fight.

"Uh...you shouldn't say any part of that out loud," Ruby commented.

"Oh you are correct! My apologies, let me try again!" Penny said with a large smile, before she stared at Ruby awkwardly. Ruby blinked for a bit, thoroughly thrown off her game by Penny being here. "Are you getting my message? I am sending it but not receiving any acknowledgement."

Acknowledge...what? "Penny I'm not a computer. If you need something, you should say it. Just...not any secrets!" she attempted to explain.

"She's been told in," Ironwood's voice said as the sprinkler's stopped. "She was also told to alert you before she went into the room. Ozpin told me not to surprise you."

"Yeah...surprise tends to make things...well, explode," Ruby explained.

"So that is how you make fire!" Penny smiled broadly, fully cheerful as if knowing the secret was great fun. "What other things can you do with your magic?"

"Uh..."

"Penny, you were told not to bug her, and to instead watch her for the techniques she used to forge, not to interrogate her on magic," another old man's voice said over the speaker. He seemed much kinder and much more calm. "Also, hello Ruby Rose, I am Doctor Pietro Polendina. Penny is my daughter."

"Salutations Father! Ruby was going to explain how magic can infuse the weapons that she makes!"

"What? No I wasn't, I can't! I don't know how to do that!"

"This is a good time to learn than anything," Fria's voice called over the loudspeaker. "Also, I recorded the Charlie episode. You looked interested."

Ruby wanted to throw her head at the nearest locker. So now she had not one, not two, but four people looking over her shoulder. Although only one was in person. "I..." Ruby started before she let out a groan.

"Ruby, we can't keep the other metalsmiths out of the forge forever. You said that making the sabers would only take a few hours, then additional time for the metal to harden," Winter's voice called out.

"I know! I know, it's just...argh. Fine," Ruby started before she took a deep breath. "Can I visit Perry after this? I'm gonna need some time to calm down," she muttered.

"That can be arranged," Ironwood's voice said easily. "Provided you don't impugn upon your bargain."

Now that the sprinkler system was off, she could get back to doing what she needed to do, but even worse now. The rust in the pipes had gotten into the slowly melting steel, which meant that now it had even more impurities than the kind she'd had to filter out from dirt.

This would have to be even hotter then. "Why do you use this white powder?" Penny asked quietly, pointing to the large pile of powder by Ruby's feet.

"It's called coke, think of it like charcoal. Burns quick, burns hot," Ruby summarized. "You need it to melt iron, and steel is an alloy of iron and carbon. With the rust and the water though, we're gonna have to go hotter," she said, focusing on the surprise and anxiety from other people over her shoulder.

"Don't use your emotions. Don't control them, let them focus you. To control the emotions directly is only a shortcut to actual control. You must not control your emotions, you must control the powers directly."

Thanks mind-Fria, Ruby said in her own mind, as she forced the fire to get hotter.

She felt it easily. Sweat was dripping off her brow now, and she heard a few steps as Penny stepped backward. She could barely give the girl more than a glance. The first impurities started to come out and float to the surface.

She focused her power onto her hands, before she reached down for a filter. It would have to flow quick from the forge into the pre-mold. She was lucky that she was in Atlas, the shapes of a saber weren't easily available in Vale, she'd have to have made her own.

"That is very hot. How are you not burning?" Penny asked behind her.

"Because I'm used to it," Ruby answered honestly. "This isn't much hotter than the forge in Vale gets. Here we go..." she muttered as the steel started to freeflow out of the forge into the molds. "Hold on, design, design," she muttered as she looked to the wall the holoscreen was on.

There was no dust in the actual weapon itself. Good, she wouldn't have to do half and half. It was easy for her now, but it didn't mean she liked doing it. "By making it liquid, the impurities stay within the forge," Penny noted.

Ruby nodded. "That's right. Don't touch these for a bit, I have to make more bits," she said, pointing to the two molds. The big parts were mostly out of the way, but now came all the fiddly bits.

It was why she had needed as much steel as she had. Two guns, one on each blade, meant that the handle would have to just a bit bigger, but it shouldn't weigh more than the original. Right, she was going to mix it with a bit of a titanium and chromium alloy to coat it. Prevent it from rusting, and make it easier to handle more variable temperatures.

"Ruby, it is cooling rapidly," Penny noted as Ruby started to grab a bar of titanium and a few blocks of chromium. She blinked, turning back around to the molds. "It should not be doing that, correct?"

"No, it shouldn't!" Ruby said quickly. Cooling rapidly, only one way that could be happening, but she could yell at Fria later. That meant that now she was on a time limit. She grabbed the bars of the metals, forcing fire into her hands. She ignored the laughing coming from the intercom in Fria's voice.

There was no time for thinking. No time for anything beyond action, and Ruby was good at action. The wind kicked up inside the forge, and she heard Penny give an alarmed exclamation. Wind surrounded her, throwing her every item she could think of. With Fria cooling the weapons rapidly, she would have, at most, five minutes to build it all. Five minutes to build a weapon that would last all of Winter's life.

And the worst part was, Ironwood had probably asked her to do this.

If metal was cooled too quick, it would break and shatter, and be worthless. And Ruby was not going to let that happen. Fire surrounded her, mixing with the wind.

Even lightning started to help out, striking the sabers to heat them up as she fought against Fria's cooling...whatever it was she was doing. They had to stay warm for them to set properly, they had to be sealed and then tempered, otherwise they'd break on the first Grimm fight.

Ruby let her instincts take her, her mind focused solely on the weapons and what she needed to do. The wind imbued every motion and thought she had. Penny was still trying to get her attention.

She'd have to apologize later.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Perry the Prisoner

"And then Ember just comes up and smacks him, sending him flying into a wall!" Ruby shouted, a broad grin on her face as she yelled out enigmatically. "It was awesome, I'm pretty sure they have aura."

Perry, the large deer faunus whom hadn't told her specifically that he was part of a faunus-exclusive supremacy group, was grinning with her. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure Viridian's a huntress, or at least only works with people who have aura unlocked. Probably for that reason."

"Fria was hating it though, saying as how it was unrealistic."

"This coming from another person with the second Semblance?" Perry asked in disbelief.

Ruby nodded. "Right!? It makes no sense that she'd be against that but then be full 'Atlas is best Atlas' mode two seconds later."

They were in a small room with a large piece of glass separating them, a few of the Atlas soldiers nearby, but no one really paid them any mind.

Perry had been involved massively in the Breach, a plan to poke a giant hole in the middle of Vale, launching an attack with thousands of Grimm into the middle of the city. It was only thanks to her actions...not that she was aware of it at the time...that they started early. It had been Perry and Adam, the leader of that sect of the White Fang, that had commissioned dozens of guns for their army, considering that only a few of them had an active aura.

"So how are you doing? I'm sorry I can't get you out," Ruby smiled gently.

"Oh, I'm not worried! I'm doing good, most of us are actually. Most of us are getting aura training now, and even Adam's been in talks with Winter about potentially training against the Specialist's of Atlas. His demands though are pretty extreme."

"Wait, his demands of her? But isn't he the one wanting to actually train?"

"No, he's too strong for that. They want to train against him, in return for better rights for faunus and things like that. Winter's doing her best, but Schnee's pushing back," Perry shrugged. "The rest of us are just doing what we can."

"Huh. Weiss wasn't like that," Ruby recalled, the few times she'd talked with the Schnee heiress. "I bet she could pull some strings."

"Adam's doing what he can to keep up his strength until then," Perry said. "But the rest of us have a pretty good deal. Free room and board, three square meals a day, training with aura to become Hunters, and from there...well, we join the Atlas military to hunt down Grimm."

"They aren't afraid of you going back to the White Fang?"

"Adam would, probably, which is why they're keeping a close eye on him. The rest of us though don't actually know where High Leader Khan is. And even then, the Belladonna's are getting back into the swing of civil protests, now that they don't have to worry about Blake as much."

"Seriously? They didn't even tell you where your leader actually was?" Ruby asked in disbelief.

Perry shrugged. "It's not that hard to believe. We're freedom fighters, Ruby, although some call us terrorists. And after the Breach almost turned out far, far worse than it was, I believe it. I think most of us needed that wake up call."

"Still doesn't explain it," Ruby admitted, before she sighed. "I'm guessing they don't let you play many games or anything?"

"Nah, it's the prison or training center only," Perry grinned. "But the training center has dozens of virtual reality games. And, well, Deery doesn't look it, but she's a really good hacker. We went and got Ring installed on one of them."

"I don't think you should mention that to me," Ruby grinned. Perry shrugged.

"I'm not worried, I think they already know. I saw one of the Ace Ops using it not too long ago, the faunus one."

"The one with the boomerang!? He's awesome, I really want to spar with him at some point but he always just laughs and says that unless I can force myself to move when I can't move I really wouldn't do much against him," Ruby complained quickly.

"That's the one! His name's Marrow, he's awesome. Elm's pretty cool too the few times she shows up. The one-"

"With the rocket launcher hammer!? Yeah isn't she just the best!?" Ruby grinned.

Perry laughed. "Yeah, they are. Most of the Ace Ops are cool. Harriet's probably the worst, and that's not really saying much in the long run. Just gotta challenge her to a race. She'll beat you, of course, but the fact she allows you to keep trying really helps both you and her work on endurance. Also, I have the highest score for 'furthest you can go on Legendary in an hour' for Ring," Perry said, winking conspiratorially.

"I can't even beat the first level on Legendary," Ruby complained. "Then again, the only time I play it is when Jaune was around, and he knows the game like the back of his hand. I'm thinking of getting him Ring 2 when that comes out."

"Isn't there a trilogy?" Perry asked. "Although the third one may not have much said about it. I thought two would have come out already."

"Nah, I'm keeping an eye on the release date. It keeps getting pushed back because the issues in Vale," Ruby shrugged. "Oh well, it'll be out soon."

Perry nodded. "That's a good way of putting it," he said, noticing a small blinking light in the corner. "Looks like five minutes left," he commented.

Ruby turned around to see the blinking light. "Ah, darn it. Well, I shouldn't pull you away from training for much longer," she commented. "I think it's almost time for me to head back too. See if you can't send some texts."

"I don't know if I'll have access to a scroll," Perry laughed, "but maybe I can do a letter. If Atlas would allow me to."

Ruby nodded. It was good to see that Atlas was trying to do their best by their prisoners. And make no mistake, they were absolutely prisoners, but in Remnant, it didn't really make sense to make things worse for people. It would just bring more Grimm in.

That was, according to Fria, the actual reason for the start of the Great War. Atlas, or more appropriately Mantle, had wanted everyone to 'be the same'. Have the same likes, dislikes, training, discipline, thoughts, and general identity, because then no one would get jealous, no one would get envious, there would few actual 'emotions' to cause Grimm to come in.

But it was as soon as they expanded that reasoning to outside of Mantle and Atlas that things got worse. Once Mistral got taken over, then Vale and Vacuo quickly decided that individualism was the best, and that was how the Great War got started.

The Faunus Rebellion and Menagerie's founding was another matter entirely, and one that Fria hadn't told her about.

It had taken a long while for Ironwood to be able to pull the right strings for her to go see Perry. And even then, she'd been mostly busy with Fria, who'd pretty much said that she'd passed down all that she knew and remembered.

Most of which got boiled down to, 'It's instincts, and emotions. Let the magic flow, ask it for what it wants to do, and it'll answer'.

Which didn't make any sense to Ruby, but then again this was magic so of course it didn't make sense. None of it made sense. Why would it make sense!?

She made her way out of the prisoner's area, which was at least somewhat brightly colored and relatively non-drab gray. The command center, also known as Ironwood's office, was mostly empty by the time that she got there, but the usual path to Fria's area was closed. Instead, sitting on the seats was Winter, polishing the sabers.

And Ruby had to admit, she had done a fantastic job. Even with Fria deliberately messing her up, and she'd confirmed later that Fria had done that by lowering the temperature of the sabers directly, which Ruby didn't even that could happen because she thought that to do something like they would have had to be touching, the wind and lightning and fire all mixed together well and created some really neat weapons.

It was a single saber, a bit unwieldy, that could separate out into two. Each one had a pistol or a gun buried deep in the hilt, and Winter had confirmed for her later on that she could still use her Semblance with it.

Which made Ruby want to know just what was the Schnee Semblance? She knew it was hereditary, Uncle Qrow wouldn't shut up about that, but what it was she'd only seen in the Tournament. And apparently, according to Winter, Weiss wasn't the best at it.

"Everything working okay with those?" Ruby asked as she glanced over. Winter was polishing them, but for some reason the oil she was using just slipped right off. She paused for a moment, that couldn't be right. She'd felt something come from the sabers when Winter had.

"For the most part. Please, sit down. This won't take long," Winter said easily, and Ruby found herself sitting across from the older woman and trying her hardest to not mess up all the inroads she'd made so far. Hopefully this wasn't about the quality of the weapons, because if it was she'd have to re-do the entire thing because Atlas steel just wasn't nearly as good a quality as Valean steel-

"First, I hope your visit with Perry went well. Second, your flight leaves in three hours, which should be enough for you to pack, and for you to let your uncle leave."

Ruby winced. "Yeah...that may take a while."

"That's why we're letting you know exact timings. We had to take a bit of time to figure it out, as Ozpin was suggesting that we set it up with minimal fuss," Winter exclaimed. "Hopefully that will doable. And please tell him to stop bothering me."

"I can give you my word that I will try but I give no word on results," Ruby said hurriedly. Winter sighed, as if she was expecting that particular answer.

"Secondly...what did you do different with these? Penny has captured your entire technique, which I hope you knew was going on, and we've had other metalsmiths try to emulate these. And yet...these work better. They are sharper, more resistant. Almost like...magic."

Ruby froze. "I didn't do anything differently! I did them the exact same as I did everything else! Maybe if I used fool's gold rather than real though, but that wouldn't matter, gold's softer so it would actually dull faster, but you just said...no..."

"We've had Penny replicate the work to the best of her ability. This is what came out," Winter said, pointing to another box on the table. Ruby took off the lid, and she tilted her head. The same steel, the same metals, absolutely. They looked near identical.

But there was just something off about them that the originals had that they didn't. She hadn't pushed aura into it, as Winter had specifically requested not having any dust wire or dust usage at all in them. "She did the exact same thing as you did, and we even had Fria there to do the same. And yet...yours are better," Winter explained. "Also...there's this," she admitted, pulling out one of the sabers and pointing to a nearby vase.

The sword was well out of reach, by almost six inches. And yet when Winter slashed, without any visible aura usage, the vase...it didn't shatter. It simply fell apart, a single groove denoting what had happened to it. "I think...that although you didn't know how, and I know that now, you've somehow imbued magic into these," Winter commented.

Ruby wasn't sure if the sound that came from her mouth was a squeal of delight, a squeal of shock, a squeal of 'oh what now', or a squeal of 'that is awesome.'

She was going to go with number four.

Lancer Troubles

Ruby relaxed onto the Manta, absorbing the way the engines slowly purred as they got up to speed. Uncle Qrow was in the seat across from her, with Dad just next to her.

It had been a close thing, making sure they'd made it on time, but with a handy use of her Semblance, she wasn't the last one on board. Granted, it was probably because the landing pad hadn't gone up when it was supposed to, but she'd wanted to interrogate...ask...Penny a few more questions about why their sabers were different.

Surprisingly, General Ironwood had given them the okay to not have to worry about an escort on the way back. There was no Winter, no Penny, no Atlas soldiers asides from the pilot who was sticking to himself, and the copilot who was taking a nap.

"You learn lots there then Ruby?" Uncle Qrow asked as he reached reflexively for his flask. Upon reaching, he realized that it wasn't there, as it had been emptied out by Winter long before the flight started, and in fact, she'd stolen his flask and put it somewhere else.

Honestly, Ruby wouldn't have doubted that she should have used Qrow's flask for the demonstration of the saber's now wind based powers because that wasn't cool enough rather than a random vase that Ironwood had said he didn't care about.

Winter had explained how it worked. She pushed aura into the blades, and the saber edges themselves didn't change, but instead the wind wrapped around them, giving them a longer edge with no additional weight. Pros and cons, Ruby knew, but she was training hard with it already.

But what more, to Ruby, was how that had happened. She'd had no idea. Sure, part of was wishing something like that would happen because being able to make magical weapons was awesome and she can't wait to do it for good for real, but also so that way she could make ones that didn't have it. It would be nice to be able to make non-magical weaponry too.

But if she could only make magic weapons from now on, that'd be cool too. Make she could make a weapon just give endless flames, or better yet constantly explode! Like that was the entire weapon, just a ball of fire that explodes!

Or better, something like the Disciplinarian that shoots lightning. And then she could add some other part on it that shoots shurikens or something. What could be better than a gun that shoots shuriken and lightning!?

"She's getting that look again, Tai. The one where she ignores everything around her and instead is focusing on something that's not right here and now," Uncle Qrow commented.

"It's been only a minute since you asked Qrow. Give her another four before she snaps out of it," Dad teased. Ruby narrowed her eyes as she moved to slap him lightly on the arm. "Oh hey, she's back!" he teased some more.

"So then Rubes, learn anything besides how to make forges explode and how to make Winter far too happy?" Uncle Qrow asked.

"Winter did look like she wanted to kiss you the first time she saw what those sabers can do," Dad teased again. Ruby narrowed her eyes. She hadn't seen that test, but she'd heard about it from Ironwood and the other Ace-Ops after the fact.

She'd cut Clover's fishing pole in half. On accident. The worst part was apparently that by doing so, she actually increased his ability to catch a fish with it. He was a notoriously poor fisherman, according to Marrow and Elm.

"I learned what I can do, so now I gotta figure out how to make it not happen," Ruby nodded. And practice more with it, so when she made Sundered Crescent it was going to be awesome. She wondered if she could somehow get Ozpin to teach how not only transformation, but that weird trick he used where he suddenly sped himself up. Imagine that on a weapon!? Sure, it'd be hard to handle but once anyone got used to it it'd be devastating against the Grimm!

Even Goliath's would be easy prey for that. She'd be all 'look I'm over here' and then she'd be on the opposite side, 'oh wait I'm here' and then all of a sudden she'd be on top of the thing, 'hi got your skull cap thing' and then the Goliath would fall. Maybe she did get too involved in her head...

"Covering over Mistral now," the pilot reported. "Estimated time of arrival is in six hours," he said instantly.

"Sure. Manta's sure go fast," Qrow commented. "So, asides from learning more about how to destroy things, think you learned enough to make Signal not want to kick you out?" he asked.

Ruby froze. "Wait...that was on the table!?"

"Oops. Might've forgotten to mention that part," Dad said easily. He had that teasing tone to him that told her he was joking, but she wasn't sure if she could actually believe that one. That seems like exactly the kind of thing that they would do.

"Of course I learned enough, you've seen how much butt I can kick right now!" Ruby shouted, only to have the Manta suddenly duck. She was shoved into her dad's leg, and Qrow almost fell against the floor. "What's going on!?"

"Lancers! Thought this path was clear!" the copilot announced, obviously up from her nap. She was already hurriedly pushing buttons and bringing up screens. "They have the third engine down!" she called out.

The pilot was in full piloting mode. "Decrease third engine down to fifty percent, and overcharge first and second to compensate!"

"Lancers are still on our tail!"

"That's one thing I can do something about-" Qrow said as he started to stand up, bringing Harbinger out when the radio crackled.

"Mayday, mayday, this is Mistral Transport S-Four O Seven! Mayday, we have a Queen Lancer on our end!" the voice called out.

"Never mind, bring us to those coordinates!" Qrow commanded. The copilot was bringing up targeting screens, as the pilot blatantly ignored him. "What are you doing!? Get us to that transport!" Qrow said.

Ruby narrowed her eyes. They were getting her to Vale. That was their mission. They were going to ignore the transport. Let them come down on their own, as they seemingly brought it upon themselves. The wind picked up in the cabin. "Our mission is to get you three to Vale. And that's what we're going to do," the pilot answered callously.

She knew it. They were going to let innocent people die because of her. She was, first of all, a huntress. Beyond a weaponsmith, beyond whatever a maiden was, she was Ruby Rose. Her mom wouldn't let them die, and neither would she.

"I know that look. Ruby, don't you dare-" Qrow started before Ruby launched into her Semblance, somehow squeezing around the interior port hole that led to the top of the Manta.

She reformed on the top of it, her eyes blazing as she found the lancers attacking them. With a quick shake of her hand, she imagined each one as an array of scythes. Looking a lot like the Floating Array mixed with Crescent Rose.

The lancers fled from the large flashes of lightning, each of them expertly aimed to crash onto the wings. The queen lancer was around here, Ruby knew, as she looked off to the side. Some small smoke over a nearby lake, haphazardly showing the transport's location.

Without thinking of much more other than 'bring me there', she jumped off the Manta, spiraling into her Semblance for extra distance. The rose petals scattered around her, below her, lifting her up.

The wind had come with her, and with her, came the wind.

She may not have had any other weapons, but she was still a weaponsmith. She was her own weapon, now.

She darted forward, unthinking of anything more than to save the ship. It was obvious when she'd found it, one of its engines blurting out black smoke and chased by a lancer about the same size as the ship itself. Around it were even more of the smaller ones, and Ruby knew what her target would have to be.

The smaller ones were taken care of instantly as she flew in, their bodies flying away as she tried to strike them. She could barely even imagine what it was she was doing. But she was the wind, and with the wind came her. She imagined blades of air slashing them apart, and she could see the flashes of lightning. Whatever the lightning missed, the air blades caught.

The Mistralian ship was a regular boat design, except that this one flew. She landed on top of the sail, feeling the wind blow around her cape and cloak. The queen lancer pulled back for a moment as its underlings died, before it glanced at her, and threw more of its spears or spikes at her. Something in the red eyes of the queen lancer dimmed, Ruby noticed quietly.

The wind blew up furiously, forcing the pilot of the Mistralian ship to have pull up at the last second to avoid landing in a rock. But the wind did its job, as most of the spikes or stingers or whatever it was that the lancer shot out were blown off to the side. Fire was surprise, but just as it was anxiety too. She focused on that, the feeling that all of these people needed to live, needed to just not die, and forced a fireball into her hands.

The lancer ignored the fireball, as it was paltry in comparison to the size of the queen. Ruby imagined there was a bit of chuckling behind it, as if the queen was having fun mocking her. Fire was anger, too, and she forced the fire back to call forth lightning again. She mixed the two, responding more to instinct than anything else. She had to focus solely on the queen. She was going to get these people to safety, because that's what Huntresses did.

The ship suddenly stopped underneath her, and she was thrown over the side of the rock. Her back slipped on some moss from one of the rocks around the lake...they'd practically landed already...and she was thrown onto the beach through the water. The queen kept chasing her, even as the ship was mostly in one piece still. The shock of the water made her realize that she was rapidly reaching her limit, but she wasn't done yet.

She felt the wind come to her call again, and she launched upwards using her Semblance one more time. This was a battle in three dimensions, but she really wished she had Crescent Rose here. With Crescent Rose, this would have been so easy. Just Petal Burst in, swing at its weak point, and Petal Burst back out.

She was nearly a hundred feet in the air with the queen lancer still following her before she hurled another fireball, seeing some of the petals around catch fire with it. The queen, of course, ignored most of it, but Ruby noticed it was a bit slower too.

It gave her an idea, and one that Uncle Qrow and Dad would hate, but she could do it.

She flashed into her Semblance a few dozen times, generating hundreds of the rose petals. Each one fell gently into the wind, gathered up quickly by the magic. The lancer fired one more array of stingers, and Ruby simply ducked to the side, glad that they were heading up rather than downwards towards the transport ship. She felt them graze against her cape and cloak, but she would do this. She could do this.

The rose petals fell next to the thing, and Ruby figured that was close enough, and lit them up with another lightning barrage, mixed with some fire at the same time. Each of them portions of her aura, and each them could explode in a small amount. Individually, they weren't that powerful. Together...

The resulting explosion knocked her towards the middle of the lake, and it wasn't just the explosion of fire that came from her that told her she was surprised. It shouldn't have been that big. It was just some rose petals! She fell into the water, glancing up to see the damage done.

The queen lancer was missing about half of its wings, and good chunk of its thorax, but it wasn't dead yet. Ruby tried to call up more of the wind to send her flying, only to find that she was strangely calm.

Oh. The powers did have a limit. Her eyes weren't on fire anymore. Maybe it was the shock of the water? She shut her eyes for a moment, trying to will them back before she saw a small piece of land, and forced her Semblance to take her over there, flying over the water on strength of her own aura.

Or maybe they just need to be turned off and on again, as she felt the water and wind come back to help her, sending her skyward in addition to her Semblance. The queen lancer was coming closer, its wings buzzing audibly louder than it had before. She didn't have much left in the tank, both in the form of aura and the maiden's powers...maybe. Maybe she just needed more practice with it.

The queen fired its thorax one more time in her direction, dozens of stingers nearly as large as she was coming from the queen. She prepared her Semblance, only for the small flash of red over her body and the sudden feeling of tiredness hit her, and she realized that she'd overestimated herself.

Then a little black crow came from the direction of the Manta, and in a small poof of smoke Qrow was there, Harbinger in full scythe form.

The queen lancer didn't stand a chance as hurt as it was. Ruby watched as the wind came to her call one more time, letting her float gently in the air, as the Grimm disappeared. The stingers kept flying, and Ruby tried to fly out of the way only for the maiden's powers to fail her once more. "This is gonna hurt..." she murmured, as she felt it as it pierced her cape, sending her flying to the ground. A flaring pain in her leg and shoulder told her that she'd been hit multiple times, and she looked back to see the rapidly approaching rocky and sandy ground.

She hit the ground solidly, her body flung into the depths of some of the bushes. "I'm okay!" she tried to cheer in pain. "Ow."

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Fools

Yang would be the first to admit that she was bored. As fun as the rest of her team was to be around, sometimes an all team mission or job or whatever the actual terminology was, she knew that she could handle something like this one by herself, and she didn't need her hand held. She hadn't had anyone except her dad to help her with Ruby when she was younger, and she'd done pretty well if she had to be honest. Granted, Ruby was already something like six or seven, and so was already taking care of most of her basic needs.

Look at Ruby now, honestly. The owner of the most successful weapon shop in all of Vale. The girl didn't know that, surprisingly, but Yang knew it was true. All other weapon shops had closed up after the Vytal Festival Tournament, because most Hunters made their own weapons.

And the schools like Signal, Pharos, or Flare also had their own weapons for new people to choose from, before they went and made their own, or more often than not depending on how much money their family had, got them commissioned. But since the preparatory schools had their own, there wasn't much need for a decent supply of relatively 'custom' weapons.

But that was exactly what Ruby offered. By all rights, she probably shouldn't have been able to get past the first six months. First two months, if Yang wasn't kidding herself, not without a lot of help from Dad and Uncle Qrow. She'd had help, certainly, based on the older books that Yang had looked through, but she'd repaid it all back, with interest to boot, although Yang doubted that either of the two had asked for it.

But she'd filled the niche so well, and with alternative means of income, that she'd managed to thrive in a desert without water. She was known as the Weaponsmith. Her door always open for someone to ask how best to use their own weapon, and sometimes she had decent advice. Someone like Pyrrha would have no need for Ruby's services like that. Neither did Velvet, but Velvet had needed help supporting her complicated nightmare of Anesidora, and she'd skipped an entire year now to mix with the rest of her team. Only possible because Ruby was good at what she did.

Advice, custom weapons, an arena for people to spar in if they so chose, and the cutest dog of all who had learned to weaponize it. Although, somehow Blake was immune to Zwei's charms for some reason...

And now she was off in Atlas because that was where the other maiden was. And hadn't that been a surprise when Ruby had shown up with her eye on fire one day.

She'd learned from Uncle Qrow what that was, and he'd gone into more detail about what the maidens actually were. She'd read through the Story of Seasons a few times more, just in case Ruby needed help with a few of the magic things.

But she seemed to have most of it under control.

Then there were the two strangers that had walked in, which set off every alarm bell Yang had and more. Despite Blake's ability to hack into the Atlas networks, they only got one name back despite the two people mentioning a third. Hazel Rainart. Even Pyrrha had fired off a few questions to some people still in the tournament scene, asking if they knew who these two were. Not a single one reported a positive.

Even the one they did get a name on, Hazel, hadn't actually done anything. He'd threatened to, but he was confident enough that Yang wasn't sure she'd win without problems. Even if the same team that took down Cinder went after him, she doubted they'd be able to take him down.

And that had been Blake, her, Pyrrha, Ruby, and Winter Schnee at different times. Five people had been required to bring Cinder down.

They'd checked on Hazel's name, using every resource they had, and the most they'd gotten was that his sister used to go to Beacon before she was killed in action against a Grimm attack on an outlying village.

That was it. All they'd gotten on him, after nearly a week's worth of searching.

"If you stare at the dust any harder, it's going to explode," Blake's soft voice said from behind her, at the glass counter of her sister's shop. Zwei was next to her, sleeping on his doggy bed, and Yang didn't miss that that there was a small cardboard divider between Blake and Zwei.

"Dust doesn't combust from simply being stared at...I hope," Jaune muttered from his usual dusting. He'd been the one in charge of keeping the weapons clean from dust, the small floating kind of dust that was everywhere, to prevent the mechashift gears from clogging up.

"It can't," Pyrrha clarified from the arena. They took turns practicing against the small AI that Ruby had installed in the thing, to keep their skills sharp. While they were technically 'excused' from classes while on a mission, their mission was just 'watch over Ruby's shop while she was gone'. And Pyrrha, instead, had told everyone to keep up on their homework and classes because the mission was so easy.

Yang had wanted a vacation, but there was no vacation to be had for Yang. "Just a figure of speech," Yang answered. "Nah, just worried about that Hazel guy. And the guy who was with him."

"No one's seen either of them," Blake answered. "And Pyrrha did tell Ozpin and Goodwitch about them, right?" she asked.

Pyrrha completed another of her spear forms. "I did," she confirmed. "It felt the prudent thing to do. They definitely seemed interested in him."

"Wonder if that's why Goodwitch wanted us to stay here longer," Jaune asked no one. "We'd have a better reason to keep a good watch on Ruby's things than most other second years."

Yang growled a bit. "I know you're right, but it still pisses me off that they'd just use us like that," she muttered. A thought came to her. "Can you imagine Cardin working the front?" she smirked.

Blake chuckled. "He'd probably say things like 'Get out of here, my brother's shop was better'."

"The Winchester shop was the best there ever was, but because you people wanted to come here instead of there, that's gone now!" Jaune quoted, deepening his voice.

It wasn't the best impersonation, but it was better than Blake's. Pyrrha gave a light giggle. "Grr, get out now," she tried.

"Pyrr, that was pathetic," Yang laughed. "Don't try to impersonate Cardin again. Or better yet, do, but in front of him!"

"I wouldn't do that," Pyrrha smiled as the arena walls went down. She gave a quick stretch, before she put her weapon on her back in spear form.

Yang's scroll rang out quietly, buzzing in her pocket. "Oh hey it's Uncle Qrow," she said aloud as she turned on the video and answered. "Hey drunkling, how're things?" she asked with a smirk. The last time she'd talked with either of the three over in Atlas, a few days ago, she'd neglected to mention any strange visit, because she didn't want to worry them.

There was a small sound of beeps coming from the scroll as Qrow didn't answer back with video. "Yang. You should get down to Vale General," he said instantly. No jokes, no buildup. Just an order.

That was how she knew it was serious. Pyrrha's scroll rang out with a new message, and the smiles faded from the others of team Peabody. The redhead looked at her scroll, pulling it out of her pocket. "We're here for a few days more."

"What happened? Did something happen to Ruby!?" Yang asked as she started to head upstairs for her jacket or the keys to Bumblebee.

Blake was two steps ahead of her, tossing her both all in one go. The cat faunus looked worried as well. "Well, she'll be okay. Just...hurt," Qrow answered.

"What happened!?" Blake started to ask.

"Sorry kitty, family only for now. Doctor's orders, not our choice. You can come in once she's been cleared, which should be in another day or two." Blake didn't relax, and Yang didn't blame her. Jaune and Pyrrha nodded to each other. Yang's mind wasn't sure on why, but that was because she was more focused on what happened to her sister.

She felt for the keys to Bumblebee, heading out the back quickly. She was almost surprised Blake wasn't following her. The yellow bike stood out in the back alleyway, on the inside of Ruby's back lab for when she was doing some of her smithing. She opened the door, pulling it open with a quick heave. "Qrow, answer me, what happened?"

"She took on a queen lancer and won," Qrow's voice said. "But a queen doesn't go down easy. And she still has a lot to learn."

A queen lancer? Yang tried to remember those from her Grimm studies. Bee-like Grimm, a bit smaller than the smallest of nevermores, which were closer to large birds in size. They could grow up to nearly as big as some buildings without problem if they weren't killed early. A queen though...they hadn't covered the Elder Grimm yet. Better than the Kaiju, at least. That was in the realm of the third years and above, but they'd probably get a crash course on them soon. Not quite the same wavelength as goliaths, which had passed the Incursion completely.

Bumblebee turned over easy, the dust engine starting up just as easily as it had the day it was fully built. Yang felt the rumble of the engine underneath her, and she hoped that one of the other three would close the lab down. She wasn't going to. She was going to hurry to the hospital.

How, though? How had Ruby been hurt!? And why? She wasn't a glory seeker, it was why she had gone into weaponsmithing in the first place! At least kept at it, Ozpin had been begging for her to take her place in Beacon. Literally begging, at one point. Yang understood why, but she agreed with Ruby. It was one thing to keep her safe, it was another to wrap her in a bubble and never let go. And Ruby...Ruby needed to stretch her wings.

She barely looked as she rolled her way onto the streets. There were no cars around, and there probably wouldn't be until she got onto the highway. Vale General was closer to Beacon more than anything, although the infirmary there was more than capable of handling any injury. But Vale General also had a specialized Hunter wing, for those Hunters injured on the job. "Which room?" Yang asked as she turned a corner sharply. She gunned the engine again, hearing the roar underneath her.

"Room three ten. Third floor. Special Wing. Tenth room," Qrow's voice answered instantly. "Tai's doing okay at least. He didn't want to say anything until she woke up, but I thought better."

The highway on-ramp would take her directly to within two streets of the hospital. She ignored the honking sounds behind her as she cut someone off, gunning her engine once more and taking off probably far above the speed limit.

The last time she'd been on the highway racing at these speeds, it was to take out an Atlas mech who was piloted by Roman Torchwick.

Now she felt just as hurried, but for a far different reason.

Surprisingly she ran into no cops or police officers as she flew by on her bike, and she ended up parking just fine in the hospital lot. Most of the time if she was going those speeds she'd have been pulled over in a minute. The person at the front desk simply looked at her outfit, before waving her on. Yang blinked. Were they just...did they know she was coming? Not even a visitor's badge?

The elevator opened up, and her dad stood there with his arms crossed. "Yang. Qrow said he called you," he said quietly. "He would've come down to pick you up, but...well...you know him and elevators."

"How bad is it? He wouldn't tell me," Yang asked instantly.

"Qrow," Dad growled lowly, and Yang suddenly felt that something was up, "she's not bad. A broken leg mostly. Mild bruising on her side."

"He told me she hadn't woken up yet!"

"Yeah, he was lying," Dad groaned. "She's okay, just going to be having a hard time for the next few weeks. It's not even the femur, or whatever the big bone is in the legs."

"...So she's okay?"

"She'll be fine," Dad answered honestly as he pressed a few of the buttons, including one that Yang was mostly sure didn't exist. It brought them up to the top floor.

There was a single nurse's station, with half of it in the dark. "This is a specialized floor, where Ozpin funds most of it out of his own pocket," Dad explained as he opened up the third room. Not even the tenth room, there were only four rooms on the floor.

The hospital room was rather plain, but in the bed laid Ruby, who was looking bored out of her mind with one of the liquids going straight into her arm. "Yang!" she yelled out instantly. "Get me out of here, I'm so bored!" she cried out. Her leg was in a cast, raised just a bit, but the silver-eyed huntress-in-training was obviously mostly unhurt. She had a few bruises on her shoulders and arms, but nothing life-threatening.

Yang wasn't sure to cry or laugh at the sight of her younger sister, hurt but still definitely okay. She wouldn't be afraid to admit she did both anyways. And then punch Uncle Qrow the instant that she could, because she noticed there was distinct lack of crow feathers around.

Homework Helper

Ruby was bored. She was the most bored that she'd ever been, ever, in the history of ever. She'd been so close to doing something amazing, and she'd succeeded but with a pyrrhic victory.

Was that where Pyrrha's name came from? Or was it the other way around? The drugs were playing tricks on her mind, although she was absolutely certain that they hadn't actually given her any. Mostly because the dull throbbing in her leg was still there, and her aura could only help so much. She'd definitely broken her aura, and then the spine had gone into her leg...yeah, something like that. She'd actually lost track of it completely. And it had knocked her out, which was probably why it wasn't worse. Wait, no, the spines had gone into her leg, and knocked her around a bit, but it was the berry bush that did most of the damage. She was awake for that part. Mostly.

The only reason Qrow had taken so long in getting out of the Manta was that the pilots had locked it after her, and it had taken nearly a complete coup, or whatever the naval equivalent was, before Qrow could get out.

Which meant she was stuck in the hospital bed, at least until she could get cleared, which should have been today!

But no, the nurses were all "The head nurse can discharge you, but we have to wait for additional tests first." She was just hurt, she wasn't actually dead or dying! She didn't need tests!

Although she had to admit the head nurse had told her that the needle in her hand shouldn't hurt, even with aura, and he'd been right about that. He'd done that rather expertly, even though Ruby had tensed up something bad. It was a needle, who liked getting poked by needles of all things!?

It wasn't as if she'd gotten poked a lot while smithing, nope.

Now if only the maiden's powers including healing magic, like some of her games or books, that would be great. It had been a day since Yang had shown up randomly, before crying and laughing and saying something about pounding Qrow for lying to her. Ruby didn't know the specifics, but she got the gist. Qrow had done something stupid, Yang had gotten worried, and Ruby knew that she should never get Yang worried.

It was a fast track to getting a pummeling in the face.

Since then the rest of Team PABY had shown up at one point or another, all asking her how she'd been doing, and what she'd been doing and why. Only Jaune looked suitably impressed by her take down of like fifty lancers and a queen by herself.

Blake had been much less impressed, at least until Ruby had said she'd done it while flying in the air.

And that was...pardon her Vacuan, damned awesome. She wanted to do that again. She wanted to go flying in the air, learning how to do that, and learn how to control it. She'd known that they could do that, they'd done it on accident with just half of the maiden's powers, both Cinder and herself. But to do it knowingly?

Flight made it all worth it. Seriously, it was that cool. And then Blake admitted she'd always envied the bird faunus that could actually fly. Ruby didn't blame her, because flying had been awesome. Now if only she could get better so she wouldn't be so bored.

As it was, Blake was still in the room, one of Ruby's many 'hidden' books in her hands, and Ruby herself had a small pile off to the right. Fortunately, Pyrrha hadn't asked and Jaune hadn't known which books to get, so they just grabbed a bunch when she'd asked. Blake had grabbed exactly what she'd wanted.

Which of course was all fine when she hadn't read them in a long time, or hadn't read them at all, but now she had, and now they were done, and she was bored.

"Blake..." Ruby whispered out. "How...how long have I been here...it's been so long..."

"It's been two days. You're fine," Blake answered simply. "Yang's watching over the shop, and she promised me she wouldn't mess with your numbers."

"I trust Yang at that, I don't trust Pyrrha. Yang knows how my codes work, Pyrrha though...she tried to ask me what some of the codes meant, and I told her it was obvious, but she didn't believe me."

"That may have been because you told her there was a difference between dust expense and dust utility, and to be fair, I'm not sure that I buy that either."

"Of course there is! Dust expense is something that you buy for the utility of dust that you then throw away, and dust utility is something that you buy for the maintenance of dust!"

Blake stared at her for a moment. Ruby didn't know why, she thought it made perfect sense to her. It made obvious sense to Yang. And that probably wasn't because they were both raised on the same method of doing finances.

The door knocked gently, and Jaune opened up the door. "Hey Ruby, hey Blake," he said, holding a large backpack in one hand. "Think I can ask for some help?" he asked quietly, a sheepish tone to his voice.

"Sure? Not sure what I can help with. I've seen your homework, and it's way over my head," Ruby answered easily. It actually wasn't, with the exception of history and geography most of it was easily understandable. Dust studies Ruby could understand being hard, but she supposed she'd have to wait until third year or fourth year to get into the real good nitty gritty of things.

"Well, maybe you can help anyways," Jaune said, pulling up a chair.

"I'm not letting you copy my homework. I told Pyrrha that this was my day, and I don't care how much work she assigns," Blake said. Jaune gave her a half-hearted glare.

"Wait, what do you mean? Don't you four still have class still?"

"We don't, because technically we're on a mission. The only other team that could've taken a full week or two week mission without going behind on things was Team Silver," Blake said. "But Pyrrha's saying that we should keep up the work anyways."

"Yeah, she really wants to beat that old team's grades by the time we graduate," Jaune muttered.

"Which team?"

Jaune blinked. "Uh...I'm not sure. Oobleck's old team, I remember that part."

"Oh, I was thinking it was my dad's old team. Stark."

Blake shook her head, "No, Stark was considered the best team of their generation, but their grades were actually mediocre. A few high ones, a few low ones. What they made up for was amount of successful operations. Highest amount of any team to date. And highest amount of detentions earned by any team to date."

"Oh right, that's what it was," Ruby nodded. "What kind of work do you have?"

Jaune pulled out a thick white binder, and Blake groaned. "Grimm studies, history, and dust studies."

"I can probably help out with the dust one."

"You're not still stuck on that assignment from two weeks ago right?" Blake asked. "Please tell me you finish that one."

"That's the one I need help with," Jaune admitted. Blake let out a groan and dove back into her book. "I'll take that to mean you won't help."

"That one caused my ears to twitch for days on end. No, I'm not helping," Blake answered with a tone of finality.

Ruby blinked, tilting her head a bit. "What one was that?"

"How many volts are in a purity sixty five lightning dust crystal, and how to find out, with a small experiment proving you were right using a voltmeter," Jaune explained.

Ruby nodded. "Lightning dust crystal...how big? That's the first piece of information you need."

"Uh...this size," Jaune said, holding out a small fist. "Peach brought a bunch of dust crystals to class and told us all to claim one and then put our name on it so no one would get confused."

Oh yeah, she remembered that. Ozpin had actually called her asking if she had purity sixty five lightning dust, because he really didn't want to have to pay Atlas' 'Academy Tax' fee. She had a few samples lying around, and Professor Peach eventually came down to get them. She'd thought he'd only wanted to ask her about joining Beacon again.

"Right. So you know how big it is, and you know the purity. Using the purity, you can figure out approximately how many amps the crystal can generate," Ruby explained.

Blake's ears were starting to perk up. "Wait, amps?" Jaune asked. "I don't want amps, just volts."

"Volts are a matter of differentials," Ruby explained, "whereas amps are the amount of current. The question doesn't sound like it's 'how many volts does the crystal have' because that's impossible, but it's 'how many volts can the crystal output all at once'. Right?"

"You know, Weiss was saying something about that at the back of the room when class was going on..." Jaune murmured.

"She said that purity sixty five contained enough amperage to kill a human, but the voltage was low unless directly connected through a wire," Blake suggested.

Ruby nodded. "Yep. Remember Neptune's weapon, Tri-Hard?" she smirked a bit at the name, "He liked to use lightning dust in it, at different purities for each point. It allowed him to create the lightning properties that went off when he stabbed Penny with it."

"So if we used different purities, we'd get different voltages but it's the same current output?" Jaune asked. Ruby nodded. "Okay...so how do we find the voltage?"

"What other information does the question give?"

"Assume a copper wire with regular resistance," Blake explained.

Ruby blinked. "Oh, that's an easy one then. Resistance and current. Multiply the two," she answered.

Jaune blinked. "That's it?"

"That's it. That's why the purity of dust crystal is so important, along with the resistance of the wire."

"Huh. That seemed harder in my head."

"I tried to make an experiment about it," Blake muttered darkly from the other side.

"Yeah, I was trying to avoid that. I did that part already, just wasn't sure about the math," Jaune explained. Blake gave him a disappointed look. "But hey, it turned out okay. Dust wizard Ruby to the rescue!"

"I hope Yang didn't need help on that question," Ruby said.

Blake shook her head. "No, Yang was fine. Pyrrha had to consult her notes for a few minutes, but she got it done in class. The only other one to do that was Weiss."

"And Grimm studies next," Jaune said, as he put away the thin white binder and pulled out a thin yellow one. "This one's just from last week."

"Makes me wish I brought my bag," Blake answered, "I haven't done that one either."

"What's this one?" Ruby asked.

Jaune groaned as he opened it. "It's 'best ways to avoid a boarbatusk given a long straightaway with no way to dodge to the side. The boarbatusk is two feet wide, and can not turn at a sharp angle. Thirty six degrees every second."

"Is jump over an option?" Ruby asked. That was a hard one. Boarbatusks's spin rapidly when they're attacking someone, and the easiest way to kill them was to flip them over and expose the unarmored stomach.

"Hallways' only a few feet tall, so no."

"Could still be actually, if you flip and let it go under you," Ruby muttered. "What've you got so far?"

"Uh...I have 'be Pyrrha Nikos and jam your spear into the floor so it flies up into the ceiling', and 'Be Yang Xiao Long and punch it really hard'," Jaune answered.

"...Does Professor Port accept those answers?" Ruby asked deadpan. She hoped he didn't.

"He does if they come from the people that answer them like that," Blake smirked. "Mine would simply be 'Be Blake Belladonna and Semblance out.'"

"All of you with your fancy Semblances...all I can do is tank it," Jaune muttered.

Ruby nodded. "Then that's what you should do. Just hold your shield out in front and once it slows down, knock it over and stab it. It'll hurt like crazy, but you'll live."

Jaune stared at her, before he started writing that down. "Be...Jaune...Arc...and...tank the hit..."

"Full points," Blake murmured from the other side of the room. "You know he'd award full points for that."

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Magical Experiments

Ruby was bored, which seemed to be a standard state of being for her recently. Ever since she'd flown, which was really, really cool if she had to be honest. But now she was still hurt, and Team PABY was still around. "I'm hurt. Just. Hurt. I don't need help," Ruby commented deadpan as Pyrrha tried to help her up the stairs. Ruby's crutches, which she'd been given after she left the hospital last week, were being used to swing up and down the stairs of her shop. Zwei kept trying to bite the bits at the bottom.

"I'm sorry! But our mission is to help you out for as long as you need," Pyrrha explained. Ruby felt her Semblance take over as the crutches were manually placed on the next step.

"...You're just doing this to get out of classwork aren't you?" Ruby accused, narrowing her eyes. The rest of Team PABY had gone back to class, except for their daring leader Pyrrha Nikos.

Pyrrha gave a soft smile at her. "I'm afraid I have no idea what you're talking about," she smiled conspiratorially. Ruby blinked, before she started to giggle a bit. While they were on a job, most people were exempt from having to do classwork. Pyrrha, however, had made it a team rule that during certain missions they were to keep up on classwork and homework.

She obviously didn't need the assistance, but the others in the team did. Jaune especially, although he was getting better. But he mostly just needed to actually practice now.

The top of the shop, her apartment basically, hadn't been changed from when she'd last seen it. Her couch had been untouched, aside from when Jaune or Yang had been sleeping on it. Someone had slept in her bed, but she strongly suspected it was Blake based on the long black hair on it.

Her own hair was black, sure, but she also had red highlights. But it was also much shorter than Blake's was, and this was nearly the length down to her mid back. In other words, the length of the cat faunus' hair.

Zwei had taken over the kitchen, small pillow forts having been built by the dog in an attempt to best his eternal nemesis, the automatic dog feeder. Ruby knew that had been the best thing she could have bought. He would have conned anyone else, but he couldn't con a machine.

"Alright, I'll be back in the morning to help with opening," Pyrrha said quietly as she started to descend the stairs. "Your dad told me not to leave you alone except for the night."

"Did he also say that it was because I needed it or because Zwei was worried about this?" Ruby asked, half glaring at the cast on her leg. So what if she'd broken a bone? It was a single bone. She'd done a lot worse than that when she was a kid. She remembered when she'd fallen off the tallest tree in Patch, falling nearly the hundred feet down onto the ground. Her aura had broken instantly, because of course it had, and she'd broken an arm and her collarbone. That had been a really, really sucky month. Aura could only help so much. The fact it was only a month said just how helpful aura was, as she knew most others would be out for three or even six times that.

"Honestly...mostly Zwei," Pyrrha admitted as she sat Ruby down on her bed gently, before she ghosted away as only the champion could. Ruby waited for a few minutes, before she clicked the 'alarm' on her front door via her scroll. She put it back in her pocket a moment later. Of course Pyrrha had forgotten to lock the door. She didn't live in Vale, she lived in Beacon. Ruby would have to remember to tell her that when she graduated...to have Yang leave the door last.

She'd have never forgotten to lock the door, if only because Bumblebee was in the garage.

Ruby tossed her head back, falling against the mattress, where the pillows were. "Zwei. Why did you make a pillow fort?" she asked the corgi, who was somewhere deep within what remained of the kitchen. There was a slow bark from the inside, as if he was lost. "I really wish I could understand you," she murmured.

Wait. She'd gotten flight down. At least, she'd been able to fly approximately, thanks to the wind. But if she could get wind...maybe she could get her other favorite magic idea down.

Well, besides Sundered Crescent. She'd have to really design that out at some point. Maybe...hmm...she could at least try it. She grabbed her scroll out of her pocket, glad that she kept it on her non-hurt side, before she opened up a messages thing to Qrow.

Uncle Qrow was the only one who she knew of who had the transformation thing. Well, besides Aunt Raven, but she'd disappeared like eighteen years ago to do...something. And Ruby didn't have her scroll number, or even knew if she had a scroll. That would be only be a good thing.

But she could ask Zwei what he was doing. And Uncle Qrow was also one of the only Hunstman that she knew that almost never went to the hospital with broken bones, even after aura. Which meant that there was something in transformation that could also help heal her!

Win-win, and win. Now all she had to figure out was how to do it. She sent him a quick message, acting as if she didn't already know about the transformation magic, asking him 'how it felt' and 'how it worked'.

His response was, as normal for this time of night, near instantaneously. It seemed weird that he almost never slept at night. Maybe he had a major problem with insomnia. Or maybe he had too many nightmares. Or maybe he had too many cookies and stayed up late at night trying to keep them from her! How dare Uncle Qrow try to keep cookies away from her!

Actually that sounded good, she should make a batch. Once she figured this out, then she'd make cookies. And make sure that Zwei got to lick the dog-friendly bowl clean with the dog-friendly mix, while she ate out of the actual bowl.

'Feels weird, like everything's flexing on itself. As for how, it's magic. How does the maiden's magic feel like?'

'Like magic,' Ruby texted back, getting a small emoji of rolled eyes back. Felt like everything flexing on itself. This would be the first non-elemental magic that she'd ever tried.

But, according to Fria, the magic was all elemental. But Ozpin had said that it wasn't, and could do a lot more than just pure elemental. They had dust for that, and he'd proven it by 'gifting' the ability to stay as a crow or a raven to...well, Qrow and Raven.

If Ozpin could do that to Qrow and Raven, then there was nothing saying that she shouldn't be able to either! Asides from actual ability, the knowledge of how it worked, the magic itself, and about a thousand other things. Eh, she'd be fine. It's not like she could be worse, or hurt herself more. She had aura for that. And her aura was at full, which was why her leg would probably be healed in a week or two if this didn't work. At most three, she used her aura too much for any longer than that.

She had nothing to lose except a batch of cookies, and there was no way she was losing any of those.

She turned the maiden's powers on, feeling them thrum to life inside her. Now that she'd gotten used to the feeling of the full maiden set, she could actively tell when they were on now. It felt like a series of Semblances, bouncing around inside her body, inside her aura, trying to come out all at once, yet tight under her control. There was no real aura usage with them, because it was magic, and she could still feel Petal Burst bursting at the seams.

There was a reason she sometimes fell into Petal Burst without realizing it.

She took a deep breath, imagining what she wanted. She wanted to become a wolf. A black and red wolf that looked somewhat like a Grimm yet still obviously not a Grimm. Maybe with a thick thing of hair on the neck, in her usual colors. Yeah, she could do that!

She envisioned the outline of how she wanted it to look. Had Ozpin done any research on crows and ravens before turning Qrow and Raven into a crow and raven? Probably not. Which meant that she didn't need to know either! Or he had, in which case that was another assumption tossed. She'd ask him in a bit. Or just to parade her new wolf-form around him while going 'haha I did it'.

Elements burst forth around her torso, but she needed something different. She needed something deeper than just elementalism. "Ruby, you can do this..." she said to herself as she shut her eyes. It was almost like a menu option, and down in the very bottom, even below rain and water, the hardest element for her to use, were the other magics. The maiden's powers were instinct, but maybe...she could force her own instinct.

She knew what she wanted, and she knew how she wanted it. She wanted the magic of Change.

Fire burst through her veins, and she concentrated on throwing it down. She didn't need fire right now. Ruby wanted something different. She wanted change, not fire. Wind burst around her, and again she shut it down. Change. Not wind.

Finally there was a burning sensation through her body, but it wasn't fire. It wasn't wind, or any of the other elements. There was something weird, and that was what she focused on. She kept repeating the image of the wolf in her mind, going again and again.

The sensation kept going, and she almost felt gleeful at the problem, before the pain suddenly racketed up.

Ruby's eyes opened instantly as she heard Pyrrha attempt the lock downstairs. "Huh. Shoot, it didn't work," she muttered, her voice sounding like it was shouting at herself. She'd wanted to be a wolf, darn it. Oh well, she had plenty of time to figure it out. She heard quiet cursing from outside as Pyrrha attempted to undo the lock.

The birds outside, too, were much louder than normal. Zwei was breathing softly in his pillow fort, his right leg brushing against the pillow he was on as he gave a quiet whine. That was odd, he wasn't awake yet. Usually Zwei was the first one awake, if only because he wanted food.

Finally the door sounded below, and Ruby could hear ever squeak of the hinges as it opened. Wasn't that door silent? She'd never heard it before. "Ruby? You awake?" Pyrrha said below. It was obvious she was trying to whisper, but to Ruby she was so very, very loud.

A fly buzzed around the top of her head, and she could hear it clearly. In an instant it was dropped to the ground with a burst of wind. "Ha, silly fly..." she murmured as she made sure to step over it. Each step was louder than normal.

"You awake?" Pyrrha asked again as she took the steps. Ruby blinked. Again, louder.

"Yeah, I'm up here," Ruby called out before she winced. She wasn't shouting, but it still sounded like she'd been. She was so very loud.

"Ruby..." Pyrrha asked quietly as she came over the steps, her eyes staring at something just above her head. "Have...you always had those?" she asked quietly.

Ruby tilted her head, and immediately Pyrrha's eyes widened a bit. "What do you mean?" she whispered. That was a normal volume, she was just louder than usual. Pyrrha was too.

"Uh...you should look in a mirror..." Pyrrha answered, with the same volume. Ruby blinked, before she shrugged and headed into the bathroom in the apartment. Her leg left her struggling a bit, but with some casual limping and the wind, she'd made it.

Her leg hadn't been healed, unfortunately, but it did feel a bit better. She grabbed at her crutches, wincing a bit as they clacked together.

She didn't bother turning on the light, as for some reason she didn't need it. It was dark, sure, but she could see just fine, just not in any color. She looked at the mirror, seeing just her own face stare back at her. "I don't see anything odd."

"You don't...?" Pyrrha asked as she opened up the door. She flicked on the light, and Ruby winced a bit as her eyes adjusted. She lifted one hand to the top of Ruby's head, and Ruby's silver eyes followed her hand up before she suddenly felt a strange feeling.

Pyrrha's hands were touching above her head. Specifically on her ears, but her ears were still on the side of her head as they should always be. But...how was Pyrrha holding on to something?

"Huh. I'd ask if this is something you found from that book Blake's been writing, but then I'd have to ask why you're reading it," Pyrrha muttered. "I think..."

"How am I a faunus now!?" Ruby shouted, before she winced as the echo roared into the new wolf ears on top of her head.

Ozpin's Help

"I don't need a hood for this," Ruby complained as Pyrrha hurried her onto the plane to Beacon. Although she had to admit, the hood helped keep the sound down. She still wasn't sure exactly what it was that she'd done wrong. She did, at least, enact some kind of changing magic so that part was correct, although she didn't know how 'become a wolf' became 'become a wolf faunus'.

Although now she had to admit, having two sets of ears was weird. She could hear sounds a lot better than she could before, and with now four points of sensitivity to determine where sounds were, she could tell exactly where someone was based on their voice.

"I don't think you want it getting out that you're a faunus now, or that you can transform into it," Pyrrha muttered. "And to be honest, I want to see Blake's reaction."

Ruby snickered. That was more along the lines of what she suspected Yang would do than anything. "Yang's been rubbing off on you," she accused.

The redhead gave a pleasant smile. "You try sticking around a room with her for months and years on end and not picking something up. I'm just glad that Jaune's mostly learned that sometimes, we're just unpleasant people."

"Let me guess, Blake kept calling it shark week and he didn't understand?"

Pyrrha raised an eyebrow as the Bullhead lifted off from the civilian airport. "How did you know that?"

"Because she took it from a book series," Ruby snickered. "I would know, Yang kept asking me for different euphemisms, and eventually I told Blake to suggest that one."

"You are all evil sometimes," Pyrrha rolled her eyes. "All of you. I swear. Was the Xiao Long household always like this?"

"Sometimes we were asleep," Ruby smirked as Pyrrha rolled her eyes again. "Nah, most of the time we just did the harmless pranks. Or sometimes hid something, but nothing ever that wouldn't normally be misplaced, and nothing big. Like we'd never hide Bumblebee's keys, or Crescent Rose. But occasionally a maintenance kit when I have like five others strewn around? Absolutely. Yang's favorite polishing cloth for her bike? Did that one a few times."

"That sounds rather pleasant sometimes, once you get used to it. Do you miss it?" Pyrrha asked, looking off the side slightly wistfully. Was Pyrrha an only child? Ruby guessed that she probably was. Which meant that it was either ridiculously mean pranks or none at all.

Neither were the best things, in her mind. But Ruby had always grown up that way. "Sometimes. But now we have accidents like this," Ruby said, flicking the wolf ears on her head. They actually felt kind of neat now that the sound sensitivity had worn off. She could wiggle them too, which most people couldn't do.

Oh, and she could hear conversations from behind her too! Like the one couple three seats back who were whispering to each other fitfully about the husband who claimed he wasn't cheating on his wife with his sister...

It was like a real life soap opera. Also, she'd checked, Vale did not get whatever it was that they played over in Atlas. Probably good for her productivity, but darn it she wanted to know what would happen. The Bullhead landed quickly, and Pyrrha led her to the main administration building. "Shouldn't we go see the rest of Team PABY first?" Ruby asked. Her ears flicked on top of her head again. The hood was starting to put pressure on them again.

"I'd prefer if we just head straight to Ozpin," Pyrrha muttered, before she sighed. Ruby grinned as she heard the familiar footsteps of Jaune and Yang. She could hear them talking long before seeing them, but somehow Pyrrha knew they were coming just when she did.

"That's what I don't get about that in dust studies. Why does it all explode, even if they aren't supposed to?" Jaune was asking Ruby's sister as they walked through the halls.

"Because dust is weird. That's like the first rule of all dust, everywhere. Ask Weiss, she'd say the same thing."

"Dust isn't that weird," Ruby called out, wincing a bit as the sound echoed off the walls. Pyrrha next to her gave a sigh and put her hand on her head, palming her forehead. She was almost too easy to tease at times.

"Ruby!" Yang called out as the blonde looked up. "Good to see you out of the sho...what are you doing here?" she asked after a moment. "And what's with the hood?"

"Oh, I was trying something new!" Ruby grinned as Jaune walked up. He took a moment to glance at Pyrrha, tilting his head in obvious confusion before he looked to Ruby, still just as confused.

"Hey Ruby, hey Pyrrha. I thought you were supposed to stay in Vale," Jaune said without comprehension. "Getting better on those crutches at least?"

Ruby nodded, hoisting one of them around. "Yeah, I'm getting better. Soon enough I'll just be able to fly around, you'll see!"

"I'd pay to see that one. Assuming, of course, you don't land and break your other leg," Blake's voice said from the courtyard. Ruby turned completely, seeing her walk up the steps next to them. In her hands was yet another of the books from Ruby's hidden stash.

"You keep stealing my books. Don't you have a stash of your own," Ruby groaned. Yang let out a coughing laugh.

"Just means you should hide them better," Yang commented. "Or maybe it's because she wants an excuse to give them back!" she grinned as Blake glared at her. There was some other joke there that Ruby wasn't privy too, something between the two. Although Ruby didn't exactly mind if Blake borrowed her books. Gave them an easy thing to talk about too!

"What's with the hood?" Blake asked. "Not that I'm complaining, but it looks odd on you."

Ruby shrugged. "I was uh...doing something I wasn't supposed to last night."

"Ruby," Blake muttered. "What was it that Ozpin said? No experimenting when he wasn't around?"

"No, he said no experimenting when no one was around. Zwei was around!" Ruby grinned, as all four members let out a low groan. "Oh come on, you know he counts. If anything was actually dangerous I'm pretty sure he could dial the hospital and Ozpin easy."

"He could, but only because I'm pretty sure he's the smartest one in the shop. And that's with all of us there," Yang muttered. She walked up and pulled off the hood. Ruby gave a quiet squeak, before she sighed as the pressure was relieved.

Blake stared. "You weren't always a faunus, right? Yang, was Summer a faunus? And I just missed it? For a year and a half?" she said, blinking in surprise.

Ruby was more surprised by her lack of surprise than anything. She was also very surprised as Yang started laughing hysterically. "Yang, what's so funny? It was just an accident!" Or maybe they were so surprised they didn't know what to think!

"We always said you were a little wolfkin when you were little, and here you are now! Only thirteen years late!" Yang laughed. "Oh, that's hilarious. I need to take a picture," she said, reaching for her scroll.

Jaune was staring at the extra ears, before he blinked and shrugged. Ruby almost wished he had given more surprise than that, but considering he was also on Team PABY maybe she should be glad for it. "I'm more surprised that they're there. Do they work? How did you do that?" he asked.

Blake was blushing a bit as Ruby nodded. "Yep! I don't know how good most other faunus can hear, but I have like...super hearing now!" Ruby grinned. "And I was experimenting with the...Second Semblance," she caught herself at the last second.

The word swap caught their attention, and they all nodded. "Okay, but...why did you bring her here then, Pyrrha?" Yang asked.

"There's nothing wrong with her being a faunus," Blake commented, narrowing her gold eyes at her leader.

Pyrrha stared back, her eyes half-lidded. "Of course there's nothing wrong, but I after a transformation this extreme it would be best to get her checked out by someone who knows what they're doing."

"Oh, that makes sense," Jaune agreed instantly. "We should do that. Right now, in fact."

"You just don't want to go to history class," Yang accused. "But actually that kind of fits. Blake?"

Blake shook her head out, her own cat ears going every which way for a moment. "That does make sense. Lead the way, Pyrrha." She also spoke quickly. She reached for the hood that she'd pulled off, letting it rest a lot more gently on Ruby's wolf ears than Pyrrha had.

Ruby had to give it to her, it was probably for the best to get them checked out by Ozpin. She hobbled after Pyrrha as the leader of Team PABY walked in front of her. Blake was behind her, and Ruby could vaguely hear her say things like 'didn't think that could happen...', that no one else seemingly caught.

Soon enough she was in front of the same green elevator that she still sometimes saw in her dreams. Pyrrha hit the button for the top floor, and the visage of Ozpin's office came into view. The windows still had some cardboard pieces on them, on some of the lesser breaking windows. The floors had some cracks still, and Ruby was certain that the gears above her should have been turning faster than they were.

Ms. Goodwitch and Ozpin were at their desk, talking quietly. Ruby caught most of it. "-funding for the continuance of Peach's class. She keeps using up more dust than she says she does," Ms. Goodwitch spoke.

"I'll talk with her. She knows we have a budget correct?" Ozpin asked with a similar hint of tiredness that she was more than familiar with. He looked over as the door opened. "Ah, Team PABY and Ms. Rose. How can...oh," Ozpin said quietly as his eyes went to her head.

Ms. Goodwitch hadn't seem to noticed the wolf ears on her head yet. "Shouldn't you four be in class? Or at least all except Ms. Nikos, you should down in Vale. And Ms. Rose, you've made it adamantly clear that you don't want to be here before your scheduled time. In ten months from now," she asked. "So then what brings you five here?"

"I believe that Ms. Rose attempted something she should not have, and...well, wanted to learn," Ozpin said as he got up. He grabbed his cane and walked over easily.

Ms. Goodwitch blinked before she too noticed it. "Oh. I see. Perhaps it's best if Team PABY and I leave you to it."

"Personally, I'd like to stay..." Blake murmured quietly, so quietly that Ruby only barely caught it. No one else seemed to say anything though, and Ruby found herself alone with the headmaster a moment later.

"So tell me, Ms. Rose, why?" he asked with a wry smile.

"I wanted to use the transformation magic!" Ruby answered, suddenly exploding. "It was actually kind of a weird thing because I realized that I could just ask Zwei why he made a pillow fort and that'd be really cool and then I remembered that Uncle Qrow can become a crow and never seems to have any broken bones so I think it does some healing too but I don't know any healing thing and to be honest I'd be terrified of using that one especially to do it wrong-"

Ozpin raised a hand, "I believe I quite get it. While you are correct, that Qrow's transformation does in fact realign bones, it does not heal them. He does, in fact, need to rest if he's hurt anything."

"So I'd still be bored."

"You'd still be bored, yes," Ozpin summarized with a slight rush of air out of his nose. "However, it is still a good thing to get used to. Change magic, as we used to call it, is notorious for being rather finicky. It's very difficult as well, it's not something that I would suggest someone new to the maiden's powers to learn. But...well, here you are."

"It's not permanent is it?"

"You are the master of the change magic," Ozpin answered, "Nothing is permanent for you when you are the user behind it. However, it does require a bit more...shall we say, patience. What was the goal?"

"To turn into a wolf."

"Ah, an animal transformation. I can tell, by the way the wolf ears on your head work, that you did the magic properly. However, to cast it yourself, you must have a good idea of how exactly a wolf operates. Not just a picture of one, or one that you hold in your mind. The truth behind them. How they move, how they behave, the color of their eyes, how they see, how they run, the softness of their fur, the harshness of their fur, their mindset, and everything about them."

"Oh. I wasn't sure. I didn't think you did that much research on Qrow and Raven."

"Corvids in particular are notorious birds," Ozpin answered, "And are often much brighter than we think them to be. When I was a young boy there used to be a small murder of crows, and every morning I'd feed them-"

"You fed a murderer of crows!?" Ruby exploded, before she realized that 'murder' meant group, for crows. For some odd reason.

"Would you have preferred if I had said unkindness of ravens?" Ozpin smirked wryly. "No, every morning I would feed those crows, and they started to guard me from the various magpie's that would always try to steal my hat."

"And that's how you got good at knowing what they looked like?"

"To be fair to your Uncle Qrow, his hair did remind me of a crow's already, there wasn't much left to do..." Ozpin murmured.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Long Arm of the Law

The hood kept snagging on her ears, creating an interesting dragging sound from the fabric rustling against the fur and hair up there, and it was all Ruby could do to not keep trying to move them.

"Are you trying to wiggle your ears?" Yang asked with more than a hint of amusement to it. "Because I don't think most humans could do that," she grinned, as if Ruby turning into a faunus was the world's greatest joke.

"Keep laughing it up," Ruby deadpanned, although internally she was agreeing with her. Really, how did this kind of thing happen!? Yes, it was magic, so it kind of belied explanation, but it was still just...argh. She wanted to turn into a wolf, not a wolf faunus!

That said, she had to admit it was kinda cool. She could hear so much better now than she could otherwise, and it was no wonder that Blake was so quiet most of the time. She could hear so much better, that she had to be quiet because otherwise she wouldn't hear half of the stuff she did!

Which meant it was hard for Ruby to focus on it because most of the time she was so loud.

Yang had agreed, with Ms. Goodwitch's approval and a written note to Doctor Oobleck to allow her to get out of the day's classes, to 'escort' Ruby back down to her shop.

Which she needed to be because the crutches were still being a giant pain and Ozpin had made her promise to never try restoration magic which was kind of the thing that she wanted to do originally and she really wished that she had at least gotten better at it because then she could heal up and be off these darn things!

Granted, it was one of the few times that she'd been allowed to ride on Bumblebee, so that always a fun thing.

Yang was driving, as was normal because Ruby wasn't allowed, on the highways leading from Beacon down to Vale proper, and then to the highways around before heading to the plaza, and from there to Ruby's shop.

"Think we're gonna get pulled over for me not having a helmet?" Ruby asked quietly. She winced as the words bit into the fabric of the hood and bounced back to her ears to be echoing so much louder than it was.

"Nah, no one in their right mind would pull me over," Yang grinned to her, the yellow helmet shining and gleaming gold as she took a turn a bit too fast.

She leaned into it, and Ruby leaned with her, keeping most of her weight straight up. Yang was a racer at her heart, at least when it came to riding on Bumblebee, and so Dad had made them come up with some kind of system that would work for whenever Yang would drive Ruby around.

Which was rare enough to need a specific rule.

A small white and black car went past the corner right by where Yang was heading to, and Ruby sighed as she saw the lights flash in the mirrors of the bike. "Oh look, someone who's not in their right mind," Ruby muttered.

"You're kidding me," Yang agreed. As a huntress-in-training, she was technically immune from being pulled over, but there were dozens of rules in Beacon about when they could and couldn't invoke those rules.

Unfortunately, this didn't count as an actual official 'assignment' so Yang couldn't use that as an excuse to get out of it. Ruby only knew half of the rules that she did because Yang had made sure to memorize each and every single one of them before graduating Signal.

Something about if she wanted to break the law, she'd best have a good reason for it. With a loud and audible sigh, Yang pulled over on the edge of the highway, the police car pulling over just as quick.

"Let me do the talking," Yang said as she activated the gravity dust to let the bike stand on its own.

"Right..." Ruby rolled her eyes, wondering how her sister was going to get out of this one. Then again, the only rule that they'd broken was speeding and her not wearing a helmet.

Neither of which were really all that serious. Unless Yang had been going faster than Ruby had thought, and she was basing that almost entirely based on how fast the wind was rushing past her face.

The lone officer got out of the car after grabbing a few things and probably running a few checks. Ruby didn't actually know how they did things, but she hoped it wasn't too much work.

She was a fairly tall woman, actually, if Ruby had to be honest. "Alright, keep your hands on your vehicle, except for when I tell you to take them off," she said with an air of disinterest, as if she was used to saying it. "But, I will be needing your license and registration."

"Sure thing," Yang agreed instantly, pulling out her scroll. The officer didn't blink or balk at it as Yang flashed her Beacon provisional license.

"This isn't for an assignment, is it? I know who you are, Yang Xiao Long," the officer narrowed her eyes at her. "I remember the plaza fight."

"Uh which one was that-" Yang started.

"Oh, wait was that the fight against Torchwick's mech!?" Ruby almost bubbled up in excitement. She remembered that fight! Oh that was so cool she'd gone so fast in complete circles and that was when she met Ghira Belladonna for the first time too! "That was so cool!"

"Who's your rider?" the officer said, and Yang sighed. "You need to get some ID out too, young lady. You're in trouble too."

"Ooh...right..." Ruby muttered as she pulled out her own scroll. Her Signal license was technically expired, on account of her being technically expelled and yet actually still a student? It was weird. Either way, she had an actual Vale ID that she could use, but not many people needed to see it. They knew her on sight if only because of Crescent...Rose...which she didn't have on account of it being destroyed.

And she hadn't made Sundered Crescent yet.

That was going to be mildly frustrating!

Ruby's blood drained cold when she glanced at the ID that popped up. Even in Vale, there was a slight area that said 'R: H' or 'R: F', for human or faunus. If they were a faunus, there was another area that said 'FT; ' with another blank next to it for the person to fill out. Faunus Trait.

Unfortunately, Ruby was not currently human even though her ID said she was. "Uh...here?" she asked, keeping her hood on and hoping that everything would be alright.

The officer barely gave it a glance, before she did a double take on it. "Wait, you're Ruby Rose?" she asked, staring hard at Ruby's face, and glancing up to her hair.

"Yeah she is! She's hurt right now and that's why I needed to bring her down to Vale it was technically an assignment from Ms. Goodwitch contact her if you need to I'm sure that she'll answer you," Yang said all in one breath as she immediately started to hit the gas and run.

Yang must have realized the same problem Ruby had. If the officer had done anything more than a cursory glance of Ruby's features that would probably prove disastrous.

The officer reached out and immediately shut the bike down with a press of the emergency stop button. Ruby was wondering why Yang had even installed one, even though she knew it was done for exactly the reason it was used. "And that's another one..." the officer said as she pulled out her ticket.

"Wait, I'm still being ticketed!? But I'm from Beacon!"

"Even Beacon's not immune to the helmet laws," the officer said. "And not to mention you were going twenty over the limit. If you weren't in an actual hurry, you should slow down," the officer explained as she handed Yang a small ticket.

Ruby could read over it, and winced as she saw the ticket total. "Oh man, Dad's gonna kill me..." Yang muttered. Ruby winced again as she realized that meant she was going to have to explain to her Dad why exactly he had a faunus daughter all of a sudden.

"And you should get down to a helmet shop," the officer turned to Ruby. "Preferably sooner rather than later, and no, hoods do not count I don't care who said they do-" she started to say, before the wind kicked up and the hood got ripped off.

Ruby felt things take a much, much worse turn. The officer stared at the wolf ears on her head, slowly twisting and turning as they did when Ruby kept trying to move them. Yang elbowed her gently. "Stop...moving...them..." she said out of the corner of her mouth.

The officer looked at her own scroll, that she'd taken a copy of Ruby's ID with. "I...I know you're human. I know you are. I was there, at the edge of Torchwick's mech defeat. Then how...? Is this some experiment of Ozpin's that he's doing now?" she asked, turning to Yang.

Ruby didn't really want to admit that most of the experiment was actually on her own end rather than Ozpin's, and Yang was very, very quick to deflect the blame. "Yep, absolutely, totally Ozpin's fault, you should go up there and check and leave us alone," Yang agreed instantly.

"...You know what, I don't care anymore. Get her to a hospital to have them looked at, but first to the station. I didn't think Ozpin would be doing those kinds of tests up there..." the officer said as she glanced up at the gleaming halls of Beacon. "You think you know a guy."

"So...can we go?" Yang asked.

"What? No, we need to go down to the station because he has to pay for what he did," the officer explained simply. "Unethical experiments, turning humans into faunus, I hope that he had your permission. But it's not like it matters, as you're a minor anyway."

"I'm sixteen!"

"And? Still a minor," the officer argued.

"I think I messed up," Yang muttered quietly under her breath. It was only thanks to Ruby's enhanced hearing that she could hear it. Ruby nodded.

"Uh...it wasn't his fault?" Ruby tried after a moment. The officer glared at them, as if daring to come up with an explanation for this mess. "It was my fault and I'm sorry!"

"Right. Because it was your fault that you got transformed. Minor. Not your fault. Come on...let's head down to the station and we can talk. Don't worry, neither of you are in trouble now," the officer said, grabbing the ticket out of Yang's hands. There was a flash of aura as Yang's hand almost got a papercut.

"Except it was? I did it against medical advice?" Ruby tried.

"That's for getting out of the hospital," Yang warned. "You know, discharged against medical advice. And uh...you obviously weren't, considering the crutches."

"And he crippled you at the same time!? It's okay you two, we can make him pay, regardless of what it was he actually did! Like I said, you're not in trouble. And we can keep a guard on you at all times. He can't hurt you anymore," the officer said.

There was a flash on Yang's screen as Ms. Goodwitch started to call her. "Give that to me," the officer said, before Yang shrugged over to Ruby. Time for the weirdest officer encounter to hopefully be over soon, Ruby hoped, as Yang passed it over. "Hello," she said.

There was a sound of Ms. Goodwitch's no-nonsense voice on the other end. "Routine traffic stop," the officer explained. "But what I want to know is you want to tell me why your boss is crippling and experimenting on children!?"

"They told you what!?" Ruby winced as even Yang heard that one. Ruby gave her sister a sorry glance. Yang was currently holding her head in her hands, focusing more towards the currently emergency stopped bike.

"We're gonna get in so much trouble..." Ruby muttered as she put her hood back on. Yang nodded, taking the moment to just chuckle darkly as she heard Ms. Goodwitch give her another set of detentions.

Appointment

Ruby sighed in defeat as she headed towards the hospital, still on her crutches. It'd been nearly two days since she'd mysteriously turned herself into a faunus, and she had yet to figure out how to change back. Ozpin kept assuring her that she could do it, but right now she was needed in the hospital. If only for a checkup on her leg.

She kept her hood up, hoping that no one would recognize her and immediately come to conclusion that 'Ruby turned herself into a faunus!'

Admittedly, she was actually still kind of ecstatic about that. She was much less ecstatic by the fact that Yang had once again gotten another week of detentions.

Although Yang had messaged Ruby later and mentioned that they weren't actual detentions, they were combat training. Ms. Goodwitch apparently agreed with Yang's lying and if it hadn't made Ozpin's life much harder and directly lying to a police officer, she wouldn't have gotten in trouble at all.

Now what kind of favoritism was that!?

"Ruby Rose, here for my three?" Ruby said as soon as she got up to the counter. Her crutches still easily held her weight, and Vale General was known for not questioning hunters-in-training. And, well, she'd proven that she'd gotten there, so she probably wouldn't need a ride out, right?

"Rose, Ruby...do you have a parent or guardian with you?" the secretary asked, a short man who looked as if he would rather be anywhere else than where he was. Ruby was fortunate at least, in that he didn't seem to recognize her.

"Uh...not here?" She tried with a wry grin. "It's just for my stupid leg, that's all."

The secretary sighed. "Alright. I'll put down that there's no guardian or parent with you. It means you can't sign for new medication, you can't be discharged if something should come up, and you can't agree to any major surgeries," he said blankly and plainly. Ruby blinked. That was a lot just for not having a guardian or parent with her.

"Sure, that shouldn't be a problem. Just a check up, anyways."

"Also, you have to remove your hood. Hospital policy," the man said as he gave her a sheet to fill out. Ruby ignored him, and pretended to not hear him as she flashed Petal Burst to sit in one of the seats.

A few of the other people in the waiting room shot her a glare for using her Semblance in front of them. She was just glad that using Petal Burst didn't actually make her hood fall, because that would cause problems.

Most of the words on the page were the basic ones that everyone always had to answer. A few new ones for her, such as what her general aura level is most of the time, what the healing rate of her aura was, if known, and what her Semblance was, if known. Dutifully she answered all of them before hobbling back over to the main secretary, who took the sheet of paper before motioning to her head.

Once again she ignored him as she waited for her number to be up. She would have thought that for a huntress-in-training they'd have more valuable healthcare for that kind of thing, especially when her leg was broken from saving a bunch of people!

Flying had been cool though. She wished she was left alone at the moment, if only so she could try and fly again, because that was so cool! She could just 'woosh' and 'woosh' and suddenly be up like twenty feet in the air as she slams them with wind and lightning and fire and she'd be so cool and awesome!

She should totally try and put that into Sundered Crescent. That's what she should do, as soon as she gets out of here! Assuming that she has the time.

Zwei was covering her shop at the moment. And the dog was notorious for making sales illegally. And she didn't mean sales as in selling items, she meant discounted items. Which...somehow wasn't ticketed against her, probably because the chamber of commerce for Vale wasn't the best at their jobs.

"Ruby?" one of the nurses called out her name, and instantly Ruby sent herself flying a bit, before she remembered the crutches, her leg reminding her that she should at least try to take it easy.

She couldn't wait to take off the darn cast.

"And how are you feeling?" the nurse asked as she led Ruby down to another room. "Any pain in the leg?" she asked.

"Only when I do something silly," Ruby answered honestly. Such as try landing on it, jumping on it, flying from more than ten feet high...the list was surprisingly long.

"Perfect. Well, just sit down on the chair or the bed, and the doctor's will be here soon," the nurse said, putting a few things on the computer before heading out, making sure to shut the door.

It was definitely less roomy than her old hospital room on the upper floor. Much smaller. The bed was taking up most of the room, and the chairs were what was left.

She dropped the crutches off onto the chairs and flashed into her Semblance onto the bed, feeling the hard and rough mattress fail to bounce her when she sat down on it. Worst. Mattress. Ever.

Ruby tried to calm herself. She should, at the least, attempt to turn back into human. She had the time, and she had the privacy. And she hadn't managed it before this, which is why her hood was still up.

She activated the maiden's powers, feeling the energy circulate through her. The elemental powers were easy, but change was...somewhere. Deeper? Farther? It was hard to describe, and impossible to figure out where. It was as if everything was a giant...well for her a giant weapon, and then each of the elements was parts of the weapon. Or something. She'd have to put more thought into that analogy.

She tried to remember what she did to cause the transformation in the first place. She had wanted to turn into a wolf, invoking something in the powers that allowed her to change. So now what she wanted was to undo that change, turn her back into human.

"Um...miss? Your eyes appears to be on fire," the doctor's voice cut through her thoughts, and Ruby opened her eyes suddenly, letting out a quiet shrill screech. She hadn't realized the doctor had come in finally. Her cast shot out and kicked the chair, and suddenly the surprise became pain.

The doctor said nothing as she calmed down, turning off the maiden's power. "You alright now?" he asked kindly. "The nurse saw that you were meditating or sleeping, and didn't want to check your blood pressure while your..."

"Eyes were on fire?" Ruby deadpanned. The doctor nodded. "It's a Semblance thing," she tried to play it off.

The doctor glanced at her chart for a moment. "Ah, Petal Burst. Odd name for it, but alright. I'm not a Hunter, as much as I tried to be," he said, sitting down on the chair. "This is the check up for your leg, correct?" he asked.

Ruby nodded, glad that he'd finally just let the matter drop. He pulled up on her cast easily, putting it on another chair so he could poke and prod. "Seems to be healing nicely. Does this hurt?" he asked, pushing hard down on her shin bone. She winced a bit, but shook her head. "No, I'm being serious, does this hurt at all?" he asked again. He did it again, getting another wince.

"Kinda? It's more uncomfortable than anything."

"Okay. That's a good sign, actually. You have to be honest when you talk to doctors, we tend to take things literally," he said. He looked down at the chart for a moment, before he felt around for her ankle. "It's feeling okay. You should be fine I think, given another week."

"I have to wear this for another week!?" Ruby asked, moving her head forward in disbelief. Her ears flicked up, and she felt the weight of the hood fall behind her head. "Uh...it's a Semblance thing?" she asked as her wolf ears danced upon her head.

The doctor stared at them for a moment, before he looked back to the chart. "I uh...I have nothing against faunus, but I do have something against patients who blatantly lie," he said simply, deadpanning his voice and tone to her. "Why would you feel you needed to hide that from us?" he asked.

"Uh..." Ruby wasn't sure how to say this next part, but usually bull-rushing through and causing the most amount of problems is generally how she did it before and it had never failed her yet! "I uh...have magic powers because I turned into the Fall Maiden and that's what my second Semblance actually is and I tried to do something that I really shouldn't because I wanted to talk to my dog Zwei about why he would make a pillow fort and so I reached into the change magic and then I turned into a faunus like this because I was trying to change into a wolf because that would be awesome and amazing you know it would be but I figured it failed when I only ended up doing this instead and that's when Pyrrha found me so we went to Ozpin and he said there's probably not that big of a change and other things happened and I think Yang's partially in trouble because of me now and now I don't know how to change back and I know it's all magical but no one else is actually willing to try and understand magic so I can't change back!"

She took a deep breath. She'd said that all in one breath, and if she was honest she'd only spent maybe twenty seconds on it. Maybe less.

The doctor blinked. He raised a hand to her head, as if expecting her to have a large fever. "And how much have you had to drink today?" he asked kindly. "Any unusual substances?" he kept going.

"I'm not on drugs!" Ruby shouted. She stood up, wincing as she landed on her casted leg still. "Watch, I'll try to change back!" she said, activating the maiden's powers again.

"Wait hold on that's just normal questions-" the doctor started to say. Ruby didn't hear him anymore because she dove deep within herself again, finding the elemental magic easy enough, before she tried to go even deeper. She didn't want elements. She wanted to change back. She needed to change back.

She felt a fuzzy feeling disappear from the top of her head, and the doctor stopped in amazement, his hand halfway to a phone in the corner where he could call for whatever it was in those medical shows when they called it a code something and then a bunch of people rushed in to try and tackle her.

Actually that'd be kinda fun.

"You...uh...what?" he asked, blinking as he cleaned his eyes out. Ruby glanced into a nearby mirror, seeing that the little wolf ears that graced her head for the longest time were now gone.

She'd done it! She'd changed back! She was no longer a wolf faunus, and all she needed to do was...

Oh. Right. Right in front of a doctor. "Uh...I don't suppose there's any way you can not say anything about this...?" Ruby asked as she shut off the maiden's powers.

"You don't need to worry about that, no one would believe me anyways," the doctor agreed. "Also, I'm sending you to the upper floors from now on. I don't want you here. I'm sorry. It's for my own sanity, you understand."

Ruby did understand. But hey, only another week or so before she got the cast off, that was something to look forward to!

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Designing Sundered Crescent

Ruby took a few steps, lightly at first, if only to make sure that she wasn't about to fall on her face. The cast had come off a few days after her accidental transformation into a faunus, and while it was off now and she'd make lots of progress, she hadn't yet been able to change into a wolf.

Not for lack of trying though. Her leg was still kind of sore, actually, and she wouldn't be running on it anytime soon. Her aura was doing its job though, healing her at a rate that most other people just couldn't do. No one from Team PABY was there this time, which she was glad for. She still had a bit of a limp, but that would go away with time, she knew. At least now she could freely work on magic without anyone staring at her in shock. Nor would she have to deal with those crutches anymore.

She created a vortex of wind around her bad leg, creating a type of lift to it that wouldn't need to fully support herself. It was the key, she knew, to actual flight but she needed more practice with it, and this way she could get that practice while working the shop at the same time. Although really, who did they have doing the dusting? They'd missed like half of the dusty corners, which meant half of the time Ruby would end up sneezing as the room filled up with dust. It was a good thing she'd gotten up early today.

Zwei was on his pillow. He'd given her a few odd tilts of the head when she came back from Ozpin's still as a faunus, but then he'd licked her head and bounced away. And when he woke up the next day only to find that she'd gone human again, he had instead licked her hair where the ears had been, and then sat on her chest happily. So that meant that Zwei accepted her no matter what. Although he was probably a still bit weirded out when she deliberately tried to enact the change three days ago, and then was weirded out further still when she enacted the change back only yesterday.

The doctors that were in charge of her cast were even more weirded out, because by all rights that shouldn't be possible. But like most professionals, they chalked it up to a weird Semblance and called it a day. Or at least, the ones that knew what was going on. Most of them just threw their hands in the air in disbelief.

"Alright, who did the dusting, seriously..." Ruby commented as she glanced over the dust container in the front. "It's like they just didn't care, or they were worried about causing an explosion."

Zwei gave a small bark. "Jaune or Yang," Ruby asked easily back. Zwei tilted his head and panted for a bit, before he gave another bark. "Yang then," Ruby guessed. That would be just like her sister too, Ruby knew, as she took a small feather duster to the line of differently colored crystals.

It wouldn't be that Yang didn't care, it would be that Yang was one of the people who could accidentally cause them to explode. Once the dusting was done, and the door was left open to let the warm air in, Ruby settled back into her usual place behind the glass counter.

She'd taken care of the majority of the commissions from the Vytal Festival, which was why she felt comfortable enough to take the...'vacation' over in Atlas. Not much of one, but on the other hand she could make magic weapons now and that was so awesome!

She couldn't wait for her next forging day to actually try and make her own. Actually, that gave her an idea. She could make Sundered Crescent, the remake of Sundered Rose Copy and Crescent Rose her first intended magic weapon!

Ruby grinned as she got out her scroll. First off, limitations. With any type of creation, from weaponry to even just making ammunition, she had to have limitations. It wasn't about what she could do, but about what she wouldn't do.

She could try to imbue Change magic into it, but she wasn't even good at it on herself yet, and that was probably the easiest thing to do according to Ozpin. She was the master of her own change magic after all. So it probably wouldn't do something like compress itself. She also had no idea about time magic, because that would be awesome but she'd have to be in super Semblance mode for that and she still had no idea how she got stuck in that.

If the weapon could slow down time, that didn't mean that she could handle it. And it was always best to try not to imbue something that she had no idea how to control. That was a valid point. Which left...

Elemental magic, mostly. Fire and Wind, if she had to be honest, because those were the two that she was most comfortable with. She'd already done wind on accident with Winter's new sabers, so she had a vague idea of how it worked.

What if she could do hot and cold? And then shoot out full wind bullets? So she'd have to make something that could handle no air, actual bullets, and something like any side ammunition because she also really wanted to do something silly and combine it with her experimental ammunition.

So the blade would have fire and not-fire. Not water, but maybe ice? She'd never tried ice before. "Hey Zwei, what emotion do you think is tied to ice? Water's sadness, obviously, but would ice be hatred or something?" Ruby asked, knowing that her dog was not capable of saying anything back. The corgi looked her way, panted softly and gave a bark before he grinned at her, falling asleep on his bed again. "Sleepiness, got it," Ruby answered with a smirk. The puppy gave her another bark of joy.

Fire was surprise, and that was a big surprise, but she'd managed to get it to the point of not needing to be surprised to get fire. And she could do heat, which was just the element of fire without the actual...fire.

The dust elements were hard. Ooh, what if she added hardlight!? That would be so cool then she could make an actual lightsaber like one of those old movies about stars and wars...and it could make the whole 'woosh woosh' sound and she'd be like 'I'm a maiden, come with me if you want to live' and she'd be totally cool and wait a minute those were the wrong movies. The second one was Annihilator, wasn't it? Annihilator 2, if she was to be specific.

Well, she could still at least do the hot and cold thing. But if surprise was fire, thinking of a weapon, or any aggressive action was lightning, and satisfaction slash frustration was wind...then what was ice!?

She could actually do the same thing with dust, couldn't she? But what if she did...both? So the blade, if held by someone who was her, had access to the magical portions of it, but then could also be used by people that weren't her.

Actually, considering that Emerald stole Crescent Rose, she wasn't sure if that was a good idea. But if anyone looked at her records then, she'd make it seem like she was normal. Yeah! She'd do that.

She scrubbed the design file of Sundered Crescent of any mention of the maiden's power, not that it was hard because there weren't any there because she'd started the design long before she figured out she could imbue magic into it, and started to add the fire and ice and wind portions.

The wind portions was going to be the real tricky one, because it wasn't a full enchantment. Actually the whole thing would be tricky because she'd never done this before.

Well, she had, but on accident. Now it was time to do it on purpose! Fire, ice, and wind. Fire and ice was attached to the scythe blade and axe's edge, allowing it to be used both forward and backward without any problems. The shaft would be the actual gun. She wanted it to be able to take in as many different types of ammunition as possible. Dust rounds, larger calibers, and then the coup de grace...the wind bullets. But how did she want them to form within the shaft?

More importantly, could she actually do it? Well, no sense in not trying for it. The alternate calibers were easy enough; a self-adjusting system on the inside of the shaft that surrounded each type of bullet, allowing it to fire...almost any caliber. No cannonballs, but that wasn't for lack of trying. Maybe also no goliath killers either, those guns were fun and fantastic but the last time she tried to fire one she almost tore out her shoulder, and that was when she was bracing with aura.

Then again, considering that Dad had made sure to be watching when she tried it, really should have told her she probably couldn't have fired it and hit anything. She had hit the target though!

Granted, said target was the size of a house, and after the shot was no longer the size of a house and maybe the size of a trillion flies, so...success!

The wind bullets though...condensed wind, obviously. Could she do that? It would be like condensed air, except keeping its shape and sharpness as it soared through the air. She'd have to ask Ozpin at some point, he was the only one with any real knowledge of magic.

She could talk to Fria, but considering this was also the time the soap opera was on, she doubted that Fria would answer.

Which left Ozpin. Which...well, she was still working through change magic, and really, that was complex enough. How to figure out what a wolf was like in every way. She could watch videos online, sure. Truthfully, she'd already had!

She turned the maiden's magic on again, feeling the elements course through her, before she called the idea of a wolf back to her head. Maybe she can get it this time?

The burning feeling on top of her head told her that no, she hadn't quite got it yet. Back to being a faunus.

She probably shouldn't be doing this in public during daytime hours, she realized in hindsight. Fortunately, it was still morning, and that meant no one was around to see her abusing her 'Second Semblance'.

She forced the change back to human, sighing a bit as she looked over the design for Sundered Crescent. If she was doing this with dust...how would she do it? Fire and ice dust would be easy enough, it's just a matter of hardening the blade to be able to withstand the quick change of temperatures. Magic wouldn't have that problem.

But the wind bullets...now that was a hard one. The closest to true wind dust was just a mixture of lightning and gravity dust. There was plant dust, sure, but it was mostly used in fertilizer, and wouldn't be of much help here either. Actually...that was another idea. A gravity well weapon that sucked in the lightning dust from the edges, creating a lightning cannon. She was writing that down. She was definitely writing that down.

Right, right, Sundered Crescent. Focus, Ruby, she told herself as she sat back down. She could make a gravity gun on her own time, but right now was Sundered Crescent Time.

And she could use the gravity gun to pick up anything, just carrying it along with her...using it to fire at anything and everything, that'd be so cool and then she could just go 'pow' and the Grimm would die and...

Zwei barked again, stunning Ruby out of her reverie. She glanced down to the completed gravity gun file, and looked at the clock to see it had been an hour or two. And Sundered Crescent still wasn't finished.

"Maybe I need to take a break..." Ruby muttered as she took another look at her new scythe's design file. Nah, she just needed a way to make it work.

Talking Change

"So as the only human who's ever turned into a faunus and back, what's really the big difference?" Blake asked from the side of the counter.

Ruby was behind the counter of her shop, counting down the minutes to closing time. Blake had decided to come down to Vale with Yang, ostensibly because Yang wanted to go and get some fish and chips which apparently they didn't serve in the cafeteria, and Blake...had submitted her order for five of the things before Yang had walked away laughing.

Ruby was of the opinion that anytime Yang was laughing, something bad somewhere was happening. Which meant that Yang would probably bring Blake five orders of fish and chips alright, but with the fish either unfried or too fried or with some major hot sauce on it.

Jokes on her, Ruby knew Blake actually enjoyed major hot sauce. The one time that Ruby had tried Menagerie cuisine, she knew why.

Which was mostly why Ruby didn't try to bake Menagerie cuisine all that much. She couldn't handle the heat if she was to do it properly, not without buckets of milk next to her. And she bought buckets of milk and wouldn't have enough.

"There's not too much difference. Eyesight's better," Ruby listed off, "Or at least better at nightvision. Not all colors were there, but that could be because wolves are colorblind. Red green. On the other hand, hearing's a lot better."

"Really? You got the colorblindness?" Blake tilted her head. "Odd. Most other canine faunus don't have that."

"Could be because I wasn't a real faunus? I was just...trying to become a wolf. Directly. Because it was cool and I wanted to try it-"

Blake raised her hands defensively, "Hey, I'm not saying anything against it. I mean, even Zwei's not bad when he's asleep...on the other side of the room...four rooms away..." Blake said quietly. Ruby couldn't help but let out a small giggle.

"Anycase, everything else didn't change. It was still mostly the same," Ruby commented. Blake nodded, before she turned conspiratorially towards the clock.

"Do you still have the same security app that you did last time?" Blake asked. Ruby raised an eyebrow, but nodded, before the ex-White Fang member took out her own scroll, messing with the buttons a bit. Instantly the door shut everyone out with a quiet red 'click'.

"I thought you couldn't do that anymore. Made it specifically so you couldn't," Ruby grinned. "And Yang's still coming here with your order, probably not a good idea to lock her out."

"It's closing time, and I set it to automatically open when Yang's scroll comes close," Blake shrugged, as if what she did wasn't that special. Ruby's eyes widened. She'd been trying to do that for ages. "By the way, I applied a security patch to it too."

"They have security patches!?"

"That explains why it was out of date by nearly six months," Blake muttered. "But no, I want to see the change. Yang says it looks really weird."

"I've seen it in a mirror, it does," Ruby agreed. She took out her own scroll, darkening the windows so people couldn't accidentally see in, before she focused on turning on the maiden's powers.

She found the elements easy enough, wind and fire especially. She had to go deeper for change though, and she pulled it up after a moment. She'd gotten a lot faster at identifying what magic was change and which ones were other ones. This time she wasn't trying to go full wolf. Just...halfway. She felt the burning feeling on top of her head again, and she felt her eyes slowly change too. Now that she was thinking about it more, she could feel the other structural changes. There weren't many, mostly just simple elongating or shrinking of some bones and muscles.

"Yang was right, that looks weird," Blake commented as she stood staring at the top of Ruby's head. "It looked like they just kind of...popped out of your skull. As if they were always there, and the magic just brought them out."

"Dad always did say I was like a beowulf when I was younger," Ruby said as the door unlocked. She glanced over just as Yang entered, holding a few small boxes.

"Food's here!" She called out instantly. "And what's with the dark windows? I didn't miss a party did I?" she said as she walked over to the counter. "Or did you and Blake kiss while I was out and I wasn't able to record it?" she asked with a smirk.

"Yang!" Ruby called out at the same time as Blake's face flushed. "She was just asking about the change thing."

"I can tell, you went wolfy again," Yang kept up the same smirk. "Alright, let's see, five for Blake with heavy on the fish, light on the chips, two for me, heavy on the chips light on the fish, and two for Ruby..." Yang said as she doled out the boxes. She paused for a moment. "You know, quick question. If you eat in this form and then switch, can you keep eating or would that change too?" she asked.

Ruby blinked. "Uh...I have no idea. We can ask Qrow at some point."

"Ask me what now?" Qrow's voice called out from the back, coming from the workshop. Ruby groaned as she unlocked the door, letting her uncle kind of stumble in. "Woah, I know that going into bird form for that last drink was a bad idea..." he muttered as he stared at Ruby's head.

"No, that's actually there," Blake answered. The first empty carton was next to her. 'Heavy on the fish' indeed, Ruby could tell it only had around ten actual fries in there. The rest was fish, and of it, it was already gone.

She was rapidly working on the second of the five cartons.

"Huh. Never thought I'd see the day. You know, we always thought that Summer was a faunus..." Qrow muttered before his hand dipped into Yang's carton and grabbed a handful of the chips. Yang protested, which Qrow fully ignored as he stuffed them in his mouth. "So when'd you figure it out?" he asked.

"We didn't?" Ruby said. "And she wasn't. I mean...she wasn't, right Yang?"

Yang groaned. "No, she wasn't. This is just drunkle Qrow messing with you. Like he always does."

"Hey, I'm not that drunk! Not for lack of trying mind you..." Qrow muttered as he leaned back against a weapon rack, causing a loose bolt at the end of the line to come undone. The entire thing crashed with a loud thump immediately. "Oops...didn't mean that."

"We know Qrow," Ruby answered. "But while you're here, what does the transformation feel for you?"

"Trans...I'm way too drunk for this conversation."

"No, I'm trying to go from human to wolf but it keeps messing up. So I can do this at will, but I can't do the final change," Ruby commented. "Also, I was going a bit further than faunus, I can see red and green now."

"Yeah?" Blake tilted her head. "They have nerves and everything, right?" she asked, before she leaned over. Ruby nodded, letting her slowly feel the fine fur on them before she let go. "Huh. Feels a lot like mine actually," she said.

"Really? Can I check!?" Yang grinned, only to get a smirk as Blake shot her a disappointed look. "Aww, so sad. You make me so sad sometimes Blake," Yang smirked.

"Huh," Qrow said, before a small cloud of smoke that seemingly came out of nowhere enveloped him, a small crow shape coming from where he was.

"Darn, didn't get to watch. Cursed smoke," Ruby muttered as the smoke disappeared. Qrow landed on top of Yang's second carton, munching a few more of the fries and getting Yang to start chasing him around the room as he cawwed maniacally.

"Getting some ideas?" Blake asked as she noticed Ruby was staring hard at him. Ruby nodded.

There was something more to the change than just transformation. There was something else going on. She focused on the magic again, going back to human, before she narrowed her eyes on the crow. "What if the smoke actually helps it?" she asked.

Blake shrugged. "Wouldn't surprise me. Also, your eyes stay silver."

"Yeah. Haven't been able to do the Grimm-killing flashlight yet though, as Jaune put it," Ruby said as Qrow landed next to her. She freely offered him one of her fries, only for him to hop past it and grab one out of her box. He gave a caww of laughter and took it to a nearby weapon on the walls.

"My fries," Yang muttered as she hugged her carton in close. "Hey Ruby, next chance we get we should do a full spar. You don't have Crescent Rose though yet, do you?" she asked.

Ruby shook her head. "No, not yet. Sundered Crescent's design is ready, but now it's a matter of being able to make it."

"Why? You've made hundreds of weapons. By now you should be the gold star," Yang grinned. Qrow's crow eyes widened as he gave an alarmed caww, turning into human with another puff of smoke.

"Please don't tell me you managed to put in magic to your weapons. Or that you're planning on it!" Qrow seemed legitimately frightened by that possibility.

"I don't plan to, no," Ruby lied easily, pulling out her scroll and pulling up the design file. "Here, here's how I plan to work it."

He took the scroll, looking through the various design specs. "That's uh...wow. That's a hard one for even you, I think."

Blake looked over his shoulder. "Fire and ice dust? Those can't be kept in the same container, they react too much with each other."

Ruby nodded. "I know," she answered. She did know that, which was why fire and ice dust were the two furthest on the shelves, much like they were on every other dust seller on Remnant. "But think of it this way, how many people are going to temper their weapons against both fire and ice?" she said.

Yang gave a smirk. "That's handy. No need to disarm your opponent if your opponent is...disarmed," she agreed. "And a variable adjustment system? How are you planning on that one?"

"Springs and valves," Ruby answered honestly. That one should just answer with what she was going to do, because while it would be a difficult build it was by no means the hardest one she'd have to work with.

"Huh. Well when you get it built, we should spar. You know, I'm getting better against Pyrrha," Yang said.

"Last time we fought, I managed to beat you," Blake interrupted. "So I think I'm closer to beating Pyrrha than you are."

"Oh you'd think that wouldn't you? Come on, we should have a go, right now," Yang grinned. Ruby rolled her eyes.

"No fighting off work hours. I don't want to have to clean up the arena again, especially when Qrow's around!" Ruby said. Both Blake and Yang grinned at each other, before they gave 'the pout' and attempted to convince her otherwise. They'd never succeed, but Ruby would let them keep trying.

"You make it sound like you don't want me around," Qrow teased, before he held his hand to his chest. "Oh, woe is me. My dear niece no longer wants her uncool, not awesome uncle around anymore. Guess I'll just and sleep and your dad's couch, being uncool with him!" Qrow said.

Ruby stared at him. "...You just want to bunk upstairs don't you."

"Can I? I don't really want to fly all the way to Patch. It's hard enough staying in the air for minutes on end. No idea how actual birds do it."

She sighed. "Yeah, feel free. Blake, Yang, are you two staying the night? Last plane back to Beacon leaves in an hour. Unless you took Bumblebee...?" she asked, realizing that she wasn't quite sure if her sister drove down to Vale.

"Sure, it's a weekend. Easier to stay down here than it is to just come down tomorrow," Yang said, before she stared at Blake with an evil smirk. "And I think I know-"

"Don't finish that sentence," Blake warned. "And this way, we get to interrogate Qrow on things."

"...I get the feeling my Semblance is starting to act up again, I should probably go," Qrow started to say, before both Blake and Yang tried to jump on him. A second later a crow was flying up the stairs. Ruby sighed as she was left alone a moment later, both of the members of Team PABY having followed him up.

"This is what I get for inviting them in here, isn't it...?" Ruby muttered with a happy smile on her face, slowly petting Zwei, who had stayed on the counter the entire time and didn't so much as nibble on Yang's chips. She should give him an award for that.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Uncle Qrow

Qrow sat on the couch, his eyes glued to the screen. Ruby sat on the floor next to him, watching the same screen as she casually attempted to understand his Ring playstyle, if only so that way she knew how to beat him next time they played together.

He was doing the campaign mode, and surprisingly hadn't wanted Ruby to join in as he tried to beat it on the hardest difficulty. Ruby had shrugged, thinking nothing of it. Blake and Yang had long since headed back to Beacon, days ago in fact, but had stayed the night over. That had been a fun night.

Although Ruby could do with a lot less teasing. Yang seemed to take way too much enjoyment out of her letting Blake 'pet' her ears when she'd changed into a faunus. Blake was the only one who knew what they felt like, her having a pair of her own. It only made sense!

"Okay, I think I got it this time..." Qrow muttered as he jumped in the game over a horde of the kaleidoscopic enemies.

Ruby smirked. He'd said that the last ten times he'd tried it, and each time it promptly ended up with a large red 'Game Over' screen. Ruby wondered how long this attempt would take. Exactly as he'd done before, he jumped over one enemy, slashing at another with the energy sword which Ruby definitely wanted to try and make in real, before he fired a grenade shot into the other pile, which boosted him up.

A few moments later there was a loud boom and Ruby grinned but winced as the screen turned red again. "Of course there's a sniper on this version. Of course there is," Qrow grumbled. "How many tries do I get before I get forced to turn it off?" he asked her.

Ruby shrugged. "I'm not worried. I've got everything done, all financials calculated, everything's done that needs to be done. So take your time, this is fun."

"You're mocking me, aren't you."

"About as much as you mock me every time I try to play around you, yeah," Ruby agreed with a grin. Uncle Qrow gave a quiet grumble before he turned his attention back to the game. She waited a few moments for him to die again, this time solely for the purposes of 'gathering information', or so he said. "You've been spending a lot of time around here. Usually it's only a few hours at most," Ruby noted quietly. "Why are you here?"

"You don't want your Uncle Qr-" he started, before Ruby interrupted him with a deadpan look.

"I can tell that something's bugging you. Usually you're only here for a few hours at a time, but now you've been here for days. You weren't even like this when Blake was staying over for ages a year ago."

Qrow quieted down, and became a bit sullen. "-My niece doesn't want me around," he fake pouted, before his expression turned serious. "Wish I could say you're wrong kiddo."

"But I'm not."

"But you're not."

"Then what's going on? Protection? You'd think Ozpin would let me know."

"I'm not sure Oz knows yet honestly," Qrow shrugged. "I only heard a name from Yang about two weeks ago, and a few days I confirmed he's here. Hazel Rainart."

"Who?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. Now she had to deal with this Hazel, much like she had to deal with Neo and Torchwick. Oh no, what if she had to deal with all of them at the same time!?

Actually that'd be kinda cool. Imagine the set pieces, lightning flashing behind her during a storm as Torchwick and Neo declare their unending grudge against her, with this Hazel, whoever he was, probably a thin small guy who had way too much aura and could just 'aura bomb' his way through everything because why wouldn't someone like that have an explosive Semblance? Behind them, laughing maniacally as she tried to jump the buildings to him, soaring through the air-

"Ruby? Start paying attention please," Uncle Qrow grumbled good naturedly. "He's not your typical bad guy."

"Who is he?"

"I just got done explaining that, but I could tell you weren't paying attention," Qrow smirked. "He's...well, his sister used to work for Ozpin. Not in the same way I do or your dad does, but more like any huntress."

"I notice the past tense."

"Yeah, she was a good huntress. Enough that Salem or the Grimm in general, not sure which, targeted her specifically. The village she died to save is still kicking, actually, I went out there about a week ago," Qrow explained. "But she had a brother, Hazel. He exploded on Oz when he showed up to give his condolences, which hey is kinda normal, but then he just...disappeared."

"You think he turned to Salem?"

"It wouldn't surprise me. She has something on a lot of people. For him, I wouldn't be surprised if it's a fake promise of reviving his sister. If she managed to promise me of bringing Summer back, and she got to me before Oz did...I'd probably go with her too."

Ruby nodded, looking down towards the floor. It was a hard question. If someone could promise them anything, what wouldn't she do? If something happened to Yang, what wouldn't she do to right it? If there was a chance, even minimal, to bring her back, wouldn't she do it too? She wanted to say 'no' on principal, but she'd done a lot of growing in the last year and a bit.

"Oz says bringing back the dead's near impossible for anything short of a god, and Salem's no goddess," Qrow shrugged, "but that's about the only thing that makes sense to me."

"How did you hear that Hazel was here?"

"He came into your shop. While we were in Atlas. Yang and Pyrrha both sent me messages about it, but neither of them got pictures of the two. There were two, by the way. One was very much Hazel, and the other..."

"And the other...?" Ruby asked.

"A scorpion faunus. Long face, black hair, tied into a braid. Cross scar on his abdomen. The only person who fits that is Tyrian Callows, but he's dead, or should be," Qrow muttered.

"I think I saw him..." Ruby noted. "When I was doing taxes for Lilac and Jasper and I had to use the CCT's printer."

At the word, Qrow shuddered. Ruby nodded in understanding. More than any enemy, printers were their most hated foes. Everyone else at least made some amount of sense. All printers did was 'Error 404, printer not found'.

That may not have been right but for all Ruby knew it was. "Huh. I'll see if I can't find a picture of him," Qrow said as he pulled out his older model scroll. He flipped through a few things, entering a password or two, before he flipped the scroll around. "This guy?" he asked, showing a picture of the faunus that Ruby had seen.

Ruby nodded. "That's the one. He looked at me right before the doors shut."

"Yeah, that's bad. If you see him again, I don't care where you are or what you have to do, run."

Ruby tilted her head. "Why? Sure, I won't be able to take him, I know what I can do, but why just flat out run?"

"Tyrian was...well, to say he was a psychopathic serial killer is like saying that Torchwick is a minor thief," Qrow answered, his eyes staring into hers. "He was the serial killer equivalent to me. I could fight on even ground, but that's using every trick in my playbook."

"What, why!?"

Qrow shrugged. "I don't know. When I fought him the first time he kept laughing about now he was having fun, and he didn't want anyone to interrupt him. Another Huntress came in to try and help me kill him, or at least bring him down, and he just flat out killed her instantly. He's not just dangerous. He's Dangerous, capital D." Ruby shuddered. "Not just that," Qrow continued, "but he's more than willing to use that danger. According to Yang and Pyrrha, Hazel was at least trying to be civil. If that was Tyrian...well, he unsettled the entire team."

To unsettle Team PABY was a difficult task, and not just because they had Pyrrha on their team. Blake and Yang were good fighters, and Jaune was learning. Even in the Vytal Festival Tournament, which they probably would have won had it continued that far, Jaune and Blake held their own. And they'd only gotten better since.

It reminded Ruby once again that she should really finish Sundered Crescent, and get to practicing with it. She knew how to use Crescent Rose, but as Pyrrha had pointed out last time she'd fought with it, her forms were basic, and she stuck by them. It didn't help that scythes were notoriously difficult to work with, and so most of those basic forms were basic because otherwise it would be very easy to accidentally lop her own head off.

Uncle Qrow, when he had first taught her the forms, told her that he'd been inspired by another, an older Huntress by the name of the 'Grimm Reaper'. Ruby honestly thought the name was a bit much, but considering that when speaking about old legends of being Hunter, she was high up there.

"Then what should I do? I can't step up security more than I already have, and considering how easy Blake proves that it's easy to break in, I'm not trusting purely electronic locks," Ruby answered.

"There's really not much. I got a rumor that said they were on the move again, but I didn't catch more, so I thought I'd stop by, act as guard duty without actually acting as guard duty."

"Because that would attract attention to me?"

"Because otherwise it'd just piss you off, and I know better than to piss off a maiden," Uncle Qrow grinned as he took another sip of his flask. Ruby glared at it for a moment, wondering if she could change it to water.

That'd be a fun prank actually. Just casually look at something and be all 'bam, now its water, look at that.' Or 'everything you thought was glass? It wasn't glass'.

That would be neat. But probably something far beyond her capability...almost ever unless she really practiced with it. But she still had the shop for a good eight months. Hard to believe that she was putting it through its last year. Unless she kept it up full time. But no, she couldn't do that. She wanted to be a Huntress. Because that was who she was. She was a Weaponsmith, a magic smith, and was always going to be a Huntress.

"Oh wait, the job fair!" Ruby suddenly remembered. She checked her scroll, realizing that she still had a few days before it would pop up.

"I...what job fair? You aren't thinking of honestly going to a job fair are you? What happened to Beacon!?" Uncle Qrow asked.

Ruby nodded, "Just to check it out! I still want to be a Huntress, but I'm still not sure about the shop yet. If I want to keep it open while I'm in Beacon, or if I want to sell it off, just plain close it...or what."

"That's a talk you're going to have with Tai about. I gave you money to start with, and you returned that easily. So...you do you. But I don't think this job fair is a good idea for you to be going to, not while being hunted by Hazel and Tyrian."

"And we don't know if Tyrian is actually the one here. For all we know it's just someone who looked a lot like him," Ruby answered.

"...You're still going to that fair, aren't you?"

"It's like a weapons convention for jobs instead of weapons! Sharp, cool weapons with lots of gadgets and valves and sharp edges that can do all kinds of cool things!"

"That's weapons, not jobs."

"I know," Ruby grinned. "It's not for a few days yet. I may only be there an hour or so."

"...Alright, just let me know when you're going. I'll go with you," Qrow muttered. "Freaking nieces twisting my arm back here..."

Anesidora

Ruby spun around in her chair a bit. Three days until the actual job fair. And she still wasn't sure if she should go, could go, would go, or any and all of the above.

For one, she'd have to be dealing with people. She shuddered at the thought. She still never quite got the hang of dealing with people. Certain people, absolutely she could go well with. Blake, Yang, Uncle Qrow, Dad, even Jaune and Pyrrha to a lesser extent. But others?

She never did quite get the hang of dealing with people like Weiss. Even Perry, when he was in Vale, was kept at arm's length because she just...didn't know how. So she ended up just talking about whatever, which so happened to be the perfect path for her.

But these people? They don't want to talk about weapons. They don't want to talk about dust purities, or why the SDC's latest shipment had been stolen by Torchwick. Again.

This time though she knew he wasn't gathering it for some purpose to overthrow Vale. He was reselling it at nearly three times its usual cost. She knew that because Neo had the gall to randomly appear in her door one day with a sign saying 'dust for ransom', realized whose door she'd walked into, and then walked back out a second later.

That said, Ruby didn't get her dust shipment through normal methods now, thanks to the Vytal Festival boosting up her sales. She used so much dust in her weapons that the SDC had upped her to free extra shipping.

Which was just normal shipping but with a few more guards.

"Zwei? What do I do," she murmured as she pun around in her chair. There was no one in the shop, and she'd already marked it down that the shop would be closed on the fair day. Even if she didn't go. She wanted a rest day, darn it.

And if worse comes to worse she could spend all day baking cookies or baking other meals to last for the rest of the month. That's what she did some days. On those days Zwei preferred to stay downstairs because the apartment got way too warm when the oven was on for so long.

He lifted up his head from the doggy bed, before he gave a low bark, panting happily before a soft whine came from his mouth, laying his head on the pillow again.

"...I really wish I could understand that," Ruby muttered. "You probably are so full of wisdom from living with Dad and me here that you're probably the smartest puppy around. And that's to say nothing of the Incursion..." Zwei's tail wagged as much as it could. Which wasn't much, but Ruby could tell it was trying to. She gave another sigh. "What to do...I want to go, but at the same time I kinda just want to stay here."

Her next forging day wasn't until next week, and that's when she planned to make Sundered Crescent. She'd blocked out an entire day to work on the thing, and with her having gotten so quick at weaponsmithing, she had no doubt that even as over-engineered as it would be, she'd be getting it done in one day.

But that was next week. Only a few more days, and she still wasn't sure if she would go to the job fair. It wasn't as if she really needed to. She could talk with other bosses just as easily too, by calling them up. But no, she wanted to be a Huntress.

The doorbell rang. Ruby perked her head up to see a very familiar pair of rabbit ears marching through her store. "Velvet!' she called out with a wide smile.

The rabbit faunus smiled back. "Hey Ruby. I'm glad you're still open," Velvet answered. Behind her the rest of the Team CVFY came in, everyone except Fox looking around at the new and improved various weapons she had lying around. She hadn't yet made that gravity gun weapon either. She would plan on it if she had the extra dust and capacity, but with Sundered Crescent still needing to be made, she'd have to put that one on the back burner.

"What're you in here for? Your next hardlight dust order hasn't come in yet, unless you've been shopping the SDC directly," Ruby asked. Velvet had a standing order for hardlight dust, and Ruby made sure to always order a bit more in case she came in needing an emergency infusion for Anesidora.

"That's the thing. Anesidora's acting weird, and I can't tell what it is," Velvet asked as she pulled the camera out of its protective case. She looked behind her. "You three can go get lunch early, this will take me a while."

"No, we will wait," Yatsuhashi...the giant...that was his name right? Whoever Velvet's partner was, the giant man with a greatsword cleaver which was honestly really cool, said. "We will be patient."

"You've improved the shop a lot Red," Coco said as she looked around. Ruby winced. She knew that Coco didn't mean it, but that was the same term Torchwick liked to use with her.

She had to push that thought down as she opened up Anesidora. It was one of the first weapons she'd looked at while the shop was new, and Velvet was her first customer. Ever. There was that other guy who came in but he said racist stuff, and then he'd tried to make another weapon shop but that had gone out of business? Ruby wasn't sure when.

The camera was...a unique weapon, for certain. It was a hardlight generator that was capable of taking in images of a three dimensional weapon, and emitting those hardlight generations. Velvet could then grab it and have it act like the real thing, in the hands of someone who knew how to use it really, really well. Something about a really good memory, Ruby wasn't sure.

She'd sparred with Velvet more than a few times, but each time they'd tied or Velvet had won. She had a lot more versatility than Ruby had, at least until recently.

"Dust stores are good, dust is still good," Ruby commented as she looked into it. "I...apertures look good, spacing looks fine, everything's screwed in tight...what's going on with her?" Ruby asked.

"That's the thing. Everything acts like it should, but then when it comes time to create a weapon, each weapon is just slightly different than the actual picture."

Ruby blinked, before she nodded, taking in that information. That was going to be a difficult one. "Just different? Or do they all have a universal difference?"

"Different. If I use Yatsu's weapon, then the sword comes out thin and long, rather than the greatsword saber that it is," Velvet explained. "And when I copy Gianduja the bullets are giant mass rather than individual bullets."

That was weird. Those were fairly drastic changes, which would only make sense if there was something wrong with the generator itself.

"Hmm..." Ruby hummed as she glanced at the part. It was one of the most important parts of the weapon, but it was one that she wasn't technically licensed to work on.

Mostly because she hadn't actually applied, but she could definitely do general repair work on it. She nodded, pulling out the majority of the weapon's innards carefully, keeping it in mostly one piece. "I did polish the generator the other night, just to make sure it wasn't that," Velvet explained. "But it's never behaved like that, even if it had a fracture."

"It wouldn't," Ruby said as she carefully unseated the piece of equipment from the bottom of Anesidora. "The generator itself is working mostly as intended, but I think there's something else stuck in here." She didn't want to shake it, because that would be the weapon equivalent of shaking a newborn baby, but she could put it down on some glass and take it apart.

Casually she opened the maiden's powers, dragging a small blanket from the corner over the glass to make sure that it wouldn't get scratched up. The generator, not the glass. Ruby didn't care about the glass. "That's a neat trick," Velvet said quietly. "Is that new?"

"Yeah, it's a second Semblance kind of thing," Ruby half-heartedly explained as she started to open up the generator. As expected, it was massively overly complex.

Hardlight didn't actually need to be that complicated. Hardlight dust was just a mixture of lightning, gravity, and light dust. Gravity and light to give it form and texture, lightning for shape. As long as it had a shape to go towards, hardlight would naturally try to go to that shape. Anesidora's job was to manufacture different shapes for the hardlight to follow.

It's why most things like Ruby's own hardlight arena was surprisingly low maintenance. The shape was already part of the equation, so the hardlight dust could be used in lower quantities or less power. But the generator was an Atlas thing. And Atlas loved its overly complicated nature more than anything.

Ruby tilted some of the parts over, before she blinked. Something had moved, within the camera. A small droplet of...something. It wasn't oil, Anesidora had no moving parts on it.

"You didn't go into the ocean with her did you?" Ruby asked as she grabbed the edge of the blanket, moving it to the hardlight lens. Just vaguely damp.

"...Not on purpose? It didn't start right then though. It started a few weeks after that."

"I told you that you should have dodged that!" Coco called out from the rack of missile launchers and ammunition trays. "But no, you wanted to be the hero and break it apart using a copy of Yatsu's sword."

"Admit it, Coco. It looked cool," Yatsuhashi said from the other side. He was almost meditating, it seemed.

"It did, yeah, and the kid loved it, but on the other hand it blew her back into a river."

"You guys were protecting a kid?" Ruby asked.

"Yeah, out in the Wilds. Small village about three days flight from here. Standard Grimm culling, but one of the kids wanted to see how Hunters fought, so we let him tag with us for a bit."

"I bet whoever was escorting you didn't like it," Ruby grinned.

"We're third years. We don't need escorts for simple things," Velvet said with a smirk. Before Yatsuhashi and Coco started to laugh. "But yeah, Ms. Goodwitch didn't like it at all," she finished, blushing lightly.

"Ouch, escorted by Goodwitch? I thought she was the combat teacher, how'd she get out of classes?" Ruby asked.

Coco smirked. "Ozpin decided he wanted to try a few classes. Beat up the second years something badly, ever since the video of his spar against you showed up on the CCT. He tried the first years too, but by then the rumors had started so he wasn't allowed to freely beat them up."

Ruby started to chuckle. "He is surprisingly hard to fight. Alright...let's see if there's any other water in here," Ruby said, as she glanced at the rest of the generator. The rest of it seemed like in good condition, so maybe it was just a lens issue...on the generator. Which would explain the differences.

The hardlight would see a different image than what was actually perceived by the camera, and it would follow the different image, not the actual. Ruby still wasn't sure how that translated to firing massive slugs out of Gianduja, but there was probably something in there for that.

Also, if Gianduja could fire massive hardlight slugs the size of its barrel then Ruby wouldn't want to be anywhere near it. Or even the same village. Or same country, really. "I'm surprised you didn't want to keep the Gianduja thing, that sounds cool."

"It was! I blew the goliath into two pieces with it!" Velvet grinned.

"A goliath!?" Ruby's eyes sparkled with excitement as Velvet started to talk more about the problem, and more importantly how she fixed it by firing far too large slugs at it.

And if they happened to cut a goliath in half...well, then maybe it shouldn't have been charging at them.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

The Job Fair

Ruby wandered around the various fair locations. There were a lot more people here than she was comfortable with, and part of her was thinking that this was a terrible idea, but the other part...well, it was kind of excited. And all she'd have to do was lie to Uncle Qrow. Eh, he'd be okay with it after a while. She'd never once partaken in any of the other job fairs, ever. The ones on Patch were always vaguely about what the island needed, whether that was farmer, what kind of store people worked at, the SDC was almost always there trying to get people to 'elevate their lives'.

The SDC was everywhere, and Ruby had no doubt that not even Weiss was fully aware of what all the SDC was doing.

There were a few unique ones for Patch, too. Woodcutter and logger were the two biggest, but the island also had fishermen. The other one that was most common was of course, being a Huntsman or Huntress. Ruby had thought that at some point her dad would have taken her to go to at least one of those, but no, he never did. Not because she didn't want to go, but rather because she never needed to.

Well, look at her now. A successful businesswoman selling weapons of all things. Admittedly, it wasn't that far off from being a Huntress, just being on the supply lines rather than the front end.

The job fair here in Vale though was massive. They had taken over an entire warehouse, one of the biggest in Vale, and were still charging people to enter.

She was still waiting in line, but she could see the various signs for the job fair in places. "Come see your next opportunity!" and "Find a perfect match for everything you've ever wanted!" Honestly, a bit much, but if they got people to come in when they normally wouldn't have, then Ruby didn't blame them. The dog park fliers were just the bare bones basics of what it was they were doing to advertise this thing.

There was a Beacon team out in front of the door, trying to get people to go in rather orderly. Ruby didn't recognize them directly, but she remembered their weapons. A whip sword spear was a pretty neat weapon, and that's who the leader was. They didn't win at the Vytal Tournament, but they had gotten to the one on one's if she remembered right.

"Remember to have your money already out. One hundred lien," the leader called out. "We're trying to get people to go in as much as possible. If you get a swag bag, just put everything in it," they called out.

A hundred lien? That was like...nothing. They probably charged a lot for the people to advertise what jobs they have here. This warehouse could not have been cheap.

They didn't seem to recognize her, which only vaguely hurt Ruby's feelings. She had changed from her usual red cloak for this, after all, to a much more muted sky blue. Her usual black corset and combat skirt had been changed to a light grassy green skirt and blouse, and she doubted that even Yang would have recognized her. Except for the boots. The boots would never change if she could help it.

As she handed over the money, that part of her that was questioning everything lit up even more. There were so many people here. Hundreds of people. Nearly a thousand if she had to guess it. All of them starting to bump into each other, human, faunus, it didn't matter.

And there was a sign that said, "No civilian weapons allowed." and that just hurt her spirits. How was she supposed to defend herself?

Hurl a ton of magic at the thing and hoped it died? Actually that would probably work, but that's what the fourth year Beacon team was for.

The inside of the warehouse was mostly plain, but hundreds of tables had been set up alongside every possible wall, including two aisles in the middle, only a large divider keeping them separated. "First time?" someone asked her form close by. Ruby turned, only to see that the young man had been talking to either his friend or his girlfriend, Ruby wasn't sure which. Either way, not talking to her.

Idly she walked around, seeing the usuals easily. The ones with the biggest attention grabs, like Beacon or the SDC, were right at the front and had the biggest tables. She was half expected to see Professor Port or Oobleck at the table, instead just seeing another third year team talking with the various people about what Beacon is like.

Neither of those two were handing out any...what did the spear sword whip user call it? A swag bag? Yeah, none of those. The few tables next to them were much smaller, one including an archaeological company that's trying to figure out the origin of the Grimm, and how to stop another Mountain Glenn.

Next to them was a plumbing company, the same one that Ruby had to use whenever Qrow ate way too much and decided to stay the night.

She was almost halfway looking for some kind of investigatory people to look into that Hazel guy. Maybe she could just talk with him, get him to explain why he was working with Salem of all things, or the enemy of all peoples.

That was a bit of a dark depressing thought, which is why she was cheered up instantly by the smell of fresh baked cookies. She followed her nose, seeing the table not too far from where she was had a small oven plugged into the back. They were a bakery company, about four blocks down from where she was, and advertising in the best way possible.

Free. Samples.

There was a small sign outside the large plate that said simply, 'Grab one and talk'. Next to it was another one that contradicted it completely, 'one cookie for each question asked'.

Did that mean she needed to ask a question before she could grab a cookie, because if so that was just unfair. How was she to have any questions, they were a bakery!? What kind of question could she ask!?

"That's a question right there!" one of the bakers shouted at her from nearby. Ruby blinked, had she asked that out loud? "You did! It's just we have to yell because otherwise we can't even hear ourselves think!" the baker kept shouting, before eventually giving two of the large chocolate chip ones into her hands.

Oh. One question per cookie, even if the questions were innocuous. That was fantastic advertising.

She'd have to remember that place and what it was called. The cookies were as they always should have been, amazing. They melted in her mouth and spread the chocolatey goodness around in her mouth without any problems, and they were even still warm.

No one can beat warm cookies.

A few tables down was a sushi place, also giving free samples. She was kind of surprised that the old man wasn't around here, trying to man every stall at once, but even Ruby knew that was impossible. It didn't stop her from imagining it though. Him running from stall to stall to keep up...well, he didn't exactly talk much, so it wouldn't be to keep conversation going.

She tried a few pieces of the basic roll, taking out her scroll and sending a mean picture to Blake and Yang. Blake because she could, and Yang because Yang hated raw fish, despite living on an island for most of her life, but these rolls didn't have raw fish in them.

They'd both be jealous.

Mean Ruby secured, she kept looking around towards the various tables. Marriage places were around, picture places were around, and finally towards the back she felt a wave of heat along with a gasp from the large audience.

Ruby blinked as she glanced towards her blacksmith friend, the one whose forge she used every week or so. She was supposed to be there tomorrow or day after, actually.

"And this is how you make steel! Steel as a whole is difficult for most people to actually forge, that's why even we have to buy the factory made stuff," he called out from a small seat. He had an entire corner tagged off, and Ruby knew why, having used his forge way too much. The heat any closer than what they were at would be near unbearable. Which made him, wearing only a shirt with short sleeves and jeans with protective gear even more strange. He must have been melting in there.

"Do you know the weaponsmith? From that one shop, Summer's Weapons or something?" someone asked next to her. Ruby stared at them. Did they not realize the proprietress was literally right next to them?

The blacksmith did, as he smirked when he saw her. "Course I do, she uses my home forge a lot for most of that gear! She pays good rates too for the actual metal."

Okay Ruby, don't say anything, don't say anything, don't say anything.

"I hoped I would!" Ruby shouted loud enough to be heard. Darn it, she said something. She was supposed to be not saying anything! The blacksmith grinned at her.

Ruby cursed herself in her head. Why would she do that!? She had one job, which was to remain out of the way and non-descript! "Since you're here anyways, Ms. Rose, how about you help me out with this piece?" he asked.

"Not really dressed the part," Ruby answered, holding out her blouse. There was a reason that she usually only forged in simple clothes with plenty of protection.

"There's plenty of safety," her friend said, causing Ruby to sigh. He wasn't about to give up, was he? Darn it. She climbed over the separation, feeling the heat beat into her. "So we're making a steel bar. Probably one that you'll use soon," he said, making sure to look towards the crowd.

She could see Jasper in the corner, laughing under a hidden hand. So he was laughing at her. Oh, he was going to pay. She wasn't sure how, exactly, but she was going to make him pay.

"Okay. Which step then are you on?" she asked, looking towards Jasper. "Jasper, what step are we on?" she asked, bringing him in. The blacksmith grinned, seemingly understand the game. The crowd turned to him immediately, their beady eyes glaring at him as if daring him to say something.

"Ah, that is to say, uh..." Jasper started to say. Ruby tilted her head. Making people uncomfortable in situations where they were already uncomfortable was fun! "Step uh...two?"

"That was light the forge!" someone shouted from the crowd.

"Just checking to make sure you were all listening!" Jasper shouted back. "I'm going to get you for this," he said into Ruby's earshot.

"Your dad's the one who brought me into this," Ruby said as she sat down next to the blacksmith. "Speaking of, why?"

"Because I noticed Summer's Weapon Shop didn't have a booth down here, and so the other way to get some help advertising. Not to mention this isn't just a job fair, it's also a tradesman fair," the blacksmith explained. "Hence plumbers, electrician's, dust engineers, even the CCT is here."

Oh. Oh well that made sense. Somehow she'd overlooked that completely on the fliers. Unless it wasn't on the fliers, at which point she'd be okay with missing it, because it's impossible to miss what isn't there in the first place.

"Alright, so before these two get into an argument, we were on step six. Putting the iron into the forge. Remember, this forge right now is extremely hot, you can probably feel the heat from where you are right now, so we have to use a lot of protection for this. Ruby?" the blacksmith explained to the crowd, before turning to her.

She nodded. Okay, so she was doing this now. Not exactly planned, but hey, job fair. What better way to show off a trade than to actually show off the trade? She grabbed the iron bar, weighing it in her hands to determine how much metal it would end up being, before she gently put it into a stone bucket, carefully moving it towards the forge.

And if she was here for an extra while, then maybe she could talk about the weapons shop. And get more cookies from the bakery. Zwei could handle the shop.

Tyrian vs. Raven?

Zwei had the shop to himself. All of it to himself. The entire shop...all two floors of it, including bathroom and the backroom lab, to himself.

He was kind of excited for this day! Ever since favorite walker had seen the papers on that tree, she'd been talking about how much she was dreading this day, but here she was, going anyways! So what if there hundreds of people there? He would kind of miss that, he loved trying to come up with silly nicknames for people. After all, he was Zwei, the Nuptuous Namer! The best namer in all the world!

Was that one a word? He'd have to find out. Where was favorite dog-walker's dictionary? He gave a light growl as he went past her dust storage place. He could handle the shop just fine on his own! And he'd prove it, too. He'd managed it just fine when the arrogant duo was here. Or rather blood person and big person. That was a good naming choice for them. And when she'd gone off to talk contracts with Bloody Sword.

Right, dictionary, where was it? Second floor, bottom shelf, 'An entire dictionary'. He trotted up the stairs, letting the wood creak gently under his paws. The wood here always did that, although he doubted favorite walker could hear it.

He grabbed the book out with his teeth, dragging it down the stairs and letting it thump against every step before he hurled it onto the glass counter above him. A moment later saw his own jump up there, his aura pushing him up. There was a slight sadness to him though, that favorite walker's favorite person couldn't be here. He was working so hard on breaking through her barriers. Favorite walker and favorite person were getting closer too, although he'd pretended he wouldn't notice.

The door opened just as Zwei opened up the book. What word was he looking up again? Oh right, nuptuous. The Nuptuous Namer, he liked the sound of it, so if not he'd have to take out the thesaurus. His head lifted up off the pages just as the scents filled his nose. Blood, steel, and a more than distinctive scent of darkness around. Poison, relatively healthy but plenty of scars, and more than a hint of psychosis.

"Oh...once again, she isn't here. Watts, you're simply incapable of this aren't you!? I ask you for one thing, 'where is the girl' and you tell me 'she's always at her shop'. Twice I've been here, and twice I haven't seen her!" he shouted, his voice deep and laughingly callous, his hand punching towards some of the boxes of ammunition.

And of course he was here by himself. For he was Zwei, the Brave Banner! He would be the barrier that braved the biggest of bogs and bandits!

He liked that one, he'd have to remember it.

"Oh? And she leaves a puppy in her stead. Hello there...doggy..." the man said, giving a quiet laugh as he gave what was probably one of the worst head scritches that Zwei had ever had. It wasn't that it was rough, but rather it was so light it was nearly impossible for him to tell that he was doing it.

He may have been afraid that Zwei would attack him, which to be fair, the corgi was currently thinking of. A bloodstained man like this one was not one that he wanted to have around. Especially since he reeked of the Dark Creatures, but not in the same that favorite dog walker or drunken bird often did.

The man pulled back quickly as soon as Zwei glanced up, the bell having another ring to it. The man gave a laughing mad grin, before the long bulky hair walked in, along with a second soul.

Zwei had to tilt his head. The scents were confusing. Outdoorsy types, obviously. There was a subtle scent of second favorite dog-walker there, but older. A faint scent of fire and rain, with only a little bit of wind, much unlike favorite dog walker. She smelled of swords, pain and anguish, but not on herself. A second deviant in just as many minutes?

Oh, but Zwei would have fun! He loved punishing evil doers, and these two were nothing if not the most evil of all evil doers!

The second soul though he wasn't certain on. Also outdoors, but much further than simply outside Vale. He didn't recognize her scent at all. He recognized the first woman's scent, but just vaguely, on stuff left out at home back in the forest home. But why was she here? That made no sense. Unless there was something more! He must figure it out, as he was Zwei, the Infamous Investigator!

"Raven?" the man asked, peeking his around the corner. "Oh ho ho! Happy days for me! My goddess has blessed me!"

"Oh, great. It's the psycho," the woman answered instantly. "Vernal, find the girl that works here. We'll force answers out of the Emerald King one way or the other. Otherwise leave, this thing would kill you."

"Got it boss!" the second girl scowled, not much older than favorite dog walker. Probably only a few years. "Dog's on the counter though, probably upstairs then," she said, jumping over the counter, only for Zwei to reach out and grab her leg, slamming her into the ground as the man threw some kind of knife at her.

"Raven, Raven...what a glorious honor it is to have you here..." the man said, his eyes getting bright, and Zwei got a specific scent of excitement. He rushed forward, pulling out two...Zwei wasn't sure what they were. Zwei, the Weapons Warranter, didn't know what they were. How dare this man use a weapon that he was unfamiliar with!

"Tyrian. Last I heard you were dead," Raven answered as a flash of red blocked off the majority of the man's attacks. "Should have stayed dead."

"My goddess forbids me from dying...certainly you knew that last time!?" Tyrian shouted as he bounced on top of the ammunition stacks, knocking them over as he jumped towards the woman. Raven. Zwei wasn't sure what her nickname should be. It wouldn't take him very long once he did come up with it. The scent was a faint recognizable one from the forest home. Barely able to be smelled in the corners, a scent that spoke of the time before she left.

The Abandoner.

That was the one.

"Stupid mutt, let me go," the girl behind him said as she tried to kick out her legs. He gave a quiet growl, before tossing her into the bloodied man. It knocked them both into the dust canisters at the front of the shop.

Abandoner glanced towards him. "Tai must've gotten another one after Ein called it quits. What'd he call you? Some stupid name for two, I bet," Abandoner muttered as she walked towards the bloodied man. "Vernal, get out of here. Upstairs or outside, if the psycho's here then he's probably hunting her too."

"Oh ho ho! You think I came to kill Ruby Rose?" bloodied man spoke as he casually got up, flicking some glass out of his arms. Next to him was one of the yellow dust crystals that Zwei wasn't actually too sure what it did. He suspected lightning and sound.

"Stupid little," the girl said as she tried to use her elbow on the bloodied man. He grabbed her arm and threw her towards another of the weapon racks, this time being hammer and warhammers.

"Vernal, when I say leave, you leave," Abandoner retorted. "Listen."

"You really should listen to her. After all, you have no idea why I'm here!" the bloodied man said as he darted forward, his arms producing the arm blades, which is what Zwei knew they must have been, because he could never be wrong, as his scorpion poison tail started to hover and rise.

"Vernal!" Abandoner shouted as she fired an ice blue blade out of her personal private weapon rack, its ice going into a large perfect curvature arc. Zwei winced as he realized that it would cut right through the missile ammunition that favorite dog walker had reserved specifically for certain people.

He ducked under the counter, pushing the button that would call the loud blue men. He tapped on it once and twice, just as bloodied man went after Outdoors girl. He heard her give a loud grunt of pain.

Right, favorite dog walker had planned for these eventualities. Granted, they were more for Best Treat Giver and Ice Cream Girl, but why favorite dog walker didn't like those two Zwei didn't know. The man with the white suit gave out the best dog treats, made with real salted jerky. He could munch on those for hours! Favorite dog walker never gave him anything like that.

And Ice Cream Girl sometimes dropped a scoop when he was on walks with favorite dog walker and let him lick it up! And best of all, it was always the best flavors. Flavors like vanilla, double chocolate sundae supreme, and mint. He liked mint. Favorite dog walker would call him a heathen though if he said it aloud.

The sound of more cracking and burning, and a loud explosion where the dust was kept, put Zwei back on the right track. Right, for he was Zwei, the Gallant Gatherer! The Memory Maestro! Oh, he liked that one.

He grabbed the small case underneath everything, hoisting it up in his jaws, just as the counter above him shattered as Outdoors Girl landed on it harshly. "Stop! Throwing me!" she called out in anger rather than pain. Zwei knew the feeling. Most people, humans and faunus alike, hated being in the air. He didn't know why, he would have loved to fly, even if it was only for a few seconds at a time. Then again, he was also Zwei, the Gravity Gambler! Ooh, that was another one he'd have to remember.

The case was easy to open for his paws and jaws, and he grabbed the small gun that favorite dog walker had taught him how to use. She'd designed it specifically for the case of more Darkness Creatures, but anyone who blatantly attacked the shop during the day was, in fact, also liable to get him, and he would need to 'protect himself in case of emergency'.

He shut it just as another weapon rack, this time holding the regular swords and lances or spears, came crashing to the ground. He could hear the flames start to lick them, and he gave a rousing ruff towards the two evil doers.

He jumped on top of Outdoors Girl, who was bleeding rather badly from her arms and torso. She gave a soft grunt as he landed there. "Come on, dog, I don't need you here too..." she muttered. Zwei saw the Abandoner and the Bloodied Man continuing to go at it, both of their swords and arm blades matching wits and clicks easily.

The dust area in the back was now on fire, with a bit of snow occasionally popping out from it, which favorite dog walker was not going to like. The hammer section had been iced over, and the sword section was currently on fire. Neither of the two combatants were hurt, which...well, he was Zwei, the Amazing Aimer!

Although really, it helped that he didn't need to aim. 'Just point and shoot', favorite dog walker had often said. And it's not like these were the really dangerous bullets that favorite dog walker had in the back. "Dog's got a gun!" Outdoors Girl shouted.

"Are you kidding me!?" Abandoner shouted as Bloodied Man gave another psychotic grin and laugh. Then Zwei pulled the trigger, and he was fairly certain that he shouldn't have gone bouncing back nearly as far as he did. The gun was gone, on one hand. On the other hand, so was the front area next to Bloodied Man, and Zwei had gotten him to stop the charge! Haha, he was excellent at this guarding thing!

"Huh. Dog's got a gun," Bloodied Man hummed again, this time in thought. Zwei heard the sirens start to approach, and he knew that he had done his job well. He was the perfect guarding dog. For he was Zwei, the Gallant Guardian! Wait, hadn't he done that one already? Shoot, he'd have to find a new one.

"Vernal! We'll come back later," Abandoner said as the sirens started to be much louder. There was a hum of...something. A scent of the outdoors flooded the shop, but not the Vale outdoors but the actual outdoors outdoors. The place where he could run free, and bite all the evil doers who dare enter the shop!

She grabbed the still groaning Outdoors Girl, and threw her through weird gray arc thing just as she walked through it herself. The Bloodied Man gave another psychotic laugh towards Zwei, before he jumped out the perfectly okay window just to break all the glass, as he ran away.

"Stop!" one of the officers shouted as their partner took a look inside. Favorite dog walker rushed up right behind her.

"By...Zwei, are you okay!?" Favorite dog walker said as she ignored the mess of the shop and quickly used her Semblance to burst over to him. He gave her a happy lick and pant. He'd done his job so amazingly!

As if to agree with him, some of the not live ammunition in the corner became live and then promptly blew up in the corner.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Reasoning the Corvid

Ruby wandered through the shop. She had no idea what had happened here, and the officers knew that she didn't. But Zwei had done his best, even so far as using the emergency gun flare on one of them. The officers highly suggested she look through things and see if anything was stolen. Ruby agreed. Even now, as she was looking over the scroll data to make sure she didn't miss a whole lot, one of the officers was in the corner simply staring at the mess. "Sorry Ms. Rose. We were just around the corner."

"Nah, it's fine. I have general insurance for this reason," Ruby answered. "But this is going to make my rates skyrocket..." she said as she labeled each of the destroyed weapons. And they were fully, completely destroyed. It wasn't just a windstorm, but a firestorm and an icestorm and who knows what else storm.

"Lots of glass. Zwei okay?" the officer asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, he's fine. A bit thrown off balance by the flare gun, but considering that wasn't meant to be used by a dog, I think that's okay."

"Speaking of, why do you have that?"

"For in case the Grimm attack again," Ruby answered instantly. "I told Zwei to only use it in case the Grimm get through again, so that way he doesn't have to mess with my lab. It has three shots in it, and each one should be enough to get a good chunk of Grimm off anything that can get into the shop. I wouldn't doubt it going through a Goliath though."

"I'd certainly hope so, it bloody melted part of your wall right here," the offcier said, running her hand down the melted steel. "And uh...I don't think you have dog insurance."

"No, I do. He's aura-awakened," Ruby explained. "Trust me, I have to fill out these forms so much it's not really that big of a surprise. Just the damage, really."

"You'll be able to stay open?"

"Yeah, most of these are fairly simple knockoffs. Most of my money now comes from commissions," Ruby said. The hammer section had been iced over, and it looked like as if some of them had been balled together by gravity dust and then let loose to explode. Even more grateful than ever that she was used to Qrow's Semblance.

Another car pulled up outside the shop, this time a white van with 'Vale News 4' written on the side. "Oh great, the news," the officer rolled her eyes. "You want to handle this, or should I just tell them ongoing investigation, no comment."

"Go for it," Ruby muttered as she tallied up the hammer damages. They weren't too bad, because most of them weren't highly specialized. It was the sword area that she had winced badly upon trying to tally it all up.

It had been several hours since she'd come back from the job fair, covered in sweat but feeling as if she'd inspired a few more people to go down the road of the blacksmith.

Maybe a weaponsmith too, if she had to be a bit honest with things. There were a lot of people who were eagerly talking about trying to make new molds and things.

But then she'd come back to this. A bigger mess than she'd ever seen before, and that was after Torchwick and Neo had thieved the place. Weapons cut in half, frozen in places, some on fire, ammunition boxes went off as if someone had crashed into them. To say nothing of the dust up near the front of the store, which had also definitely gone up in smoke. This was either going to break her account completely or be completely refunded, one of the two. It was always down to those options too.

"Ms. Rose! Ms. Rose! Do you have some time for a comment!?" came a news reporter from the front. Ruby glanced at her. Wasn't the officer supposed to be handling them?

Then she looked out the other window to see that she had been handling them, but one officer could only do so much. Another two van's had popped up, also from other news agencies, and were trying to get a clear view of the destruction.

"No comment yet. There's still an ongoing investigation," Ruby said, pointing to the officer outside. "Officer DuFresne knows more I think."

The news person didn't seem all that happy with her, taking a look inside. "This is some serious insidious damage. There weren't any customers in here when you ignited all that dust were there? What kinds of safety protocols do you have!?"

Ruby tilted her head. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait outside-" Ruby started to say. Obviously she'd already shut and locked the door, but there was only so much that locking the door can do when there was a massive hole right next to it. Courtesy of Zwei. The only thing that Ruby could comment on that is that she missed it. It would have been glorious.

"Whatever safety protocols you have, they are obviously not enough! And is that an animal!?" she screeched, pointing to Zwei. Behind her was a tall man with a camera, trying to sneak in the same way the reporter had.

"That's Zwei! He's my dog," Ruby grinned. "Now come on, leave, I have work to do. You'll get the same statement as everyone else-"

"Throwing me out!?" the woman screeched into the microphone. The cameraman winced behind her. "Keeping an animal in here with all of this dust, I'm liable to think that the dog lit it all up and you're just taking advantage of all of our goodwill when in reality you're nothing more than a pensive ignorant girl!"

Zwei gave a quiet whine. Ruby stared at her, the grin falling off her face. "Leave," she said. "This is your last warning." There was no tone. This woman was rapidly trying to compete with Emerald in terms of how much Ruby liked her.

"Absolutely not! When the hero of Vale's shop is destroyed by her own stupidity and this is how she treats the press?"

Ruby gave a quiet sigh, and invoked the Maiden's powers. The wind conjured around her, and she lifted up both the woman and the cameraman up. It was a decent camera, at least, and Ruby could tell that the guy really didn't want to be there. She'd spare his tech.

She set him down gently on the other side of Officer DuFresne, but the woman...Ruby glanced towards the other vans. She had no idea which one the woman was in, but it wouldn't hurt to try them. The wind aided her completely, and although a small part of her wanted to shove her towards the vans, she didn't. Ruby doubted that the reporter had aura. It probably would've been more dangerous out there on the frontier cities if she did. Aura attracts Grimm just as much as negative emotions did, which was why most Hunters had their aura unlocked early. Instead she set her down next to the van, hopefully giving the idea that Ruby had basically just said 'Go Away'.

"Thanks Ruby. Just so you know, trespassing doesn't mean that you can assault with a Semblance," Officer DuFresne called back with a smirk.

"That wasn't assault! They'd know if I really wanted to hurt them!" Ruby called back, before she sighed. She ducked back in just as the sign above her fell to the ground, right where the reporter had almost been. "And that could've been bad."

"Hey there Flop. Bad timing?" Qrow's voice called out from behind her. Ruby took a deep breath before she extended her senses, trying to find the next string of bad luck that would hit her. Also, flop? She turned it around in her head. Flop. As in fall. As in Fall. Autumn. She let out a groan, ignoring Qrow's grin.

"Just a bit, Uncle Qrow," Ruby muttered as she turned around. She flung herself to the side as one of the swords, one of the normal swords that had actually been unhurt, suddenly twisted in on itself and fell apart. "Okay, how does that one work," Ruby asked no one.

"Just some bad luck," Qrow grinned as he looked around. "Looked like you'd been hit by a tornado. And another tornado. And then my Semblance on a bad day."

"That sounds about right," Ruby agreed. "I don't know, I got back from the job fair thing-"

"Thought you weren't going to that..."

Ruby ignored him, "-But when I came back I came back to this. Zwei's fine, he just had to fire the flare gun out. That's what tore down the wall," Ruby pointed it out, just in case Qrow needed the extra attention. Another small chunk of concrete fell down with a dull thump in the hole.

"Huh. I'll admit, that's kinda strange," Qrow said as he started to look around more. He knelt down next to some of the dust scars. "Any idea who?"

"Not a one. Maybe that Hazel guy you were bringing up," Ruby shrugged. "But beyond that, I have nothing."

"This wasn't Hazel. For one, Ozpin has him on the other side of the city, right now, trying to not lose at an arcade game," Qrow explained, and suddenly Ruby got the image of a massive giant person the size of Ghira Belladonna trying to play skeeball and losing if only because he was so strong. "For another, Hazel uses his fists, and none of this damage was done by someone's hands."

"I mean, there is plenty of wreckage," Ruby shrugged. "And someone's body was slammed into my counter over there," she said, looking at the glass ridden counter. She was glad that she didn't keep knives face up in that counter anymore like she used to, otherwise who ever had been thrown into it would certainly need a lot of kidney repairs.

"Nah...that's weird though," Qrow muttered as he glanced at some of the fire and ice scars. "These look like sword strikes, but almost no one uses swords made of pure dust."

Ruby nodded. Doing so was a sign of a throwaway weapon. Dust by itself wasn't the most stable thing around, and if made into a large sword using a single crystal, all it would take is a single spark to set it off. If someone wanted a pure dust effect on their sword, she'd simply create the sword and then enamel or electrolyze the dust onto it, assuming it wasn't lightning dust. Lightning dust would have another method entirely.

"Although there is one person..." Qrow said as he glanced through the wreckage. "And she does use swords of both fire and ice. But that's just weird, because there's no reason she should be here at all..."

"Who?" Ruby asked. "I know no one at Beacon uses anything like that. And most actual Hunters would know better."

Qrow stood up, looking down at the ground for a moment, before he glanced her way. "How much you remember about Yang's mom?" he asked.

Ruby blinked. That was an odd question. Then again, this situation was odd. "Uh...let's see, your sister, stubborn as a donkey, left Yang and Dad long before I was born because otherwise how would I be here..." Ruby summarized, before she shrugged. "Yang has a picture of her, but that's the only time I've ever seen her."

Qrow nodded. "Raven Branwen. My sister, so you got that part right. After she had Yang she realized she wasn't the motherly type and decided to leave rather abruptly one day."

"She was a part of team Stark too, wasn't she?" Ruby asked, sitting down in the chair. It rolled backwards a bit, crushing down on some glass. Right, perhaps now wasn't the best of times to be sitting down.

"She was. Summer, Taiyang, Raven, and Qrow. STRQ," Qrow summarized. "Still not entirely too sure how or why she fell out with Oz, but after he did the whole transformation thing, she took the power and ran."

"Any ideas why she ran, or what she'd be doing here?"

"Not a clue to either. Oz may have told her something that he didn't tell the rest of us. Or he told it to her first as a bit of a test. As for what she's doing here, I wouldn't have a clue."

"How would she get here so fast though? She's...what, usually out in Mistral I think you told me ages ago?" Ruby asked. She grabbed another picture with her scroll, and then started the long arduous task of cleaning up by grabbing a broom and dustpan.

"She has a portal Semblance. Can get to anywhere she has an anchor, which she gets by being emotionally close with someone. Yang, Tai, me, and Summer. Maybe she's developed a few more by now," Qrow summarized.

"That's...an extremely powerful Semblance," Ruby muttered. "Emotionally close though...I wonder if that drains her? Like, that's why she's so distant all the time is because her Semblance is always on, kind of like yours in a way," Ruby said offhandedly.

Qrow blinked, before he nodded. "Could be..." he said, before he ducked to the side as another piece of the ceiling fell off above his head.

Lunch with PABY

Ruby shuddered as the noise of the environment was getting to her. She was good at quiet spaces, not loud ones like this one.

"You should have seen the look on her face, it was hilarious! Like she just looked over and realized 'aw crap, that's one of my old employees!'" Jasper was grinning as he drank his root beer.

Next to him was Yang, who was smirking and grinning at the same time and Ruby didn't exactly know how she managed that but she did. She was the only one with any real alcohol, although according to the waiter a 'strawberry sunrise' didn't have much in the way of actual alcohol, if it had any. It was so light that it was practically impossible to get buzzed off of...according to the waiter.

Ruby wasn't planning on testing that theory anytime soon.

Across from him was Lilac, who was smiling like a loon. She was sitting a bit awkwardly, if only because the booth seats weren't the most comfortable for faunus with a tail. Ruby herself was next to Lilac, and Blake next to her, soothing the environment down with her own drink of choice, a kind of soda thing that Ruby had never heard of.

"I'm honestly surprised she even went to go in the first place," Lilac said, sipping down some milk. Ruby's own chocolate milk was very clear for everyone else to stay away from. "I mean, when had Ruby ever gone out and socialize on her own?" she asked.

"I'm right here," Ruby answered. "And I'm socializing right now."

"We also did have to drag you out to this," Blake answered. "Especially considering the state of your shop. I'm surprised the officers didn't give Yang a ticket."

"Hey, no comments on my driving. I can drive just fine, otherwise we wouldn't be here," Yang pointed out, glaring at her teammate. "Besides, most of the officers know who I am by now and they know that when I'm speeding, it's for a good reason."

"Or because you just had to go check on your sister after hearing about it from that uncle of yours," Jasper smirked. "That said, Dad did call it the most successful job fair he's ever had, and that was even before Ruby showed up abruptly."

"Was it always that busy? There seemed to be a lot of people there," Ruby muttered.

"I can see it," Blake nodded. "The trades are always a good thing to get into, because we'll always need them. And right now, with the Breach and the Incursion in the past, a lot of people are rethinking their lives right now."

"Yep. Made the coffee shop a pain," Lilac agreed. "Admittedly I only work there part time now."

"Oh, they rehired you?" Ruby asked as Lilac's cheeks went pink a bit, but she nodded. Ruby had thought that everyone at the table knew about how Lilac had been fired before at a coffee shop for stupid management reasons, but she might've kept that card close to the chest. "That's great!" she said with a smile.

Jasper nodded. "I've always said that whoever doesn't hire you for customer service doesn't know what service actually is," he said, pointing his fork in her direction. It was perfectly clean, if only because they hadn't had food served yet.

"Thanks. It wasn't close, according to my boss, but I figure he just always has to say that. But it gives me enough time that I only have a few classes left now."

"Alright, that's something to celebrate," Yang grinned. "The first of us to actually get out of this schooling scenario!" Yang said, holding up her drink. Blake rolled her eyes, but grabbed her soda. Ruby tilted her head, but mimicked her anyways, grabbing her chocolate milk. Lilac and Jasper grabbed theirs, clinking their glasses together.

"Technically, Ruby was first," Blake pointed out, "If only because she couldn't continue."

"Ah, technically correct, the best kind of correct," Jasper grinned. "I mean, I'm not in school either, but my dad's not happy with my progress enough yet for me to take off into my own."

"You gonna be a big blacksmith boy too elsewhere?" Yang asked, a smirk buried on her face. Ruby started to shake her head. She knew where this was going.

"Yep, over in Mistral. Already have a premises in mind, and with so many outlying areas it should be easy to find the right pieces for a forge," Jasper grinned.

"Mistral, wow. Leaving Vale first chance you get? Running away from something?" Lilac said as she leaned over the table.

"First you have to climb out the mountains before you can start running," Jasper said. Ruby blinked, and tried to hold back a groan.

Yang had no such compulsion. "You can always run alongside the rivers. Those'll take you out of the vale too!" she said. Jasper's eyes lit up, and both Blake's and Lilac's started to dim.

"I didn't think I was that washed up yet."

"Certainly you have no paddle!"

"Ruby, please, make it stop," Blake commented as she sipped her soda. "You know them best, how do you turn them off."

"Why are there two of them," Lilac murmured as she held her ears. Yang and Jasper kept up the train of puns, just long enough for the waiter to come around with all of their food. Standard bar fare, according to Yang, but it was decent stuff anyways according to Jasper.

Ruby had gotten chicken wings with the 'special sauce' which wasn't bad from what Jasper and Yang said. Although how Yang remembered the food when she had gone and almost blown this place straight up, Ruby didn't know.

"Those look good," Blake pointed out, ignoring the fish tacos on her own plate. "Mind if I have a bite?" she asked. Ruby grinned, grabbing one with the most meat she could find, putting some sauce on it and putting it over onto Blake's plate. A quarter of a single taco replaced it, which was more than fair in Ruby's opinion.

"Alright, that's kinda cute. How'd you get Blake to share any fish? The last time Nora tried to ended up getting fried for a week. And that's with her Semblance, mind," Yang said, pointing her fork towards her hamburger.

"Who's Nora again?" Lilac asked, reaching past her far too cheesy for Ruby's taste nachos for a napkin. "Friend from Beacon?"

"Yeah, she's on Team Silver," Yang explained. "You have us, Peabody, and if you laugh," she said, staring Jasper down, "then I don't know what I'll do, but it won't be fun. Then you have Silver, and that's Schnee, Cyril Ian, Nora Valkryie, and Lie Ren."

"I think I remember seeing them on the tournament. Valkyrie was the one that used those grenades of yours right Ruby?" Jasper asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, I asked her to test them out to see how well they'd hold up in a real test environment rather than the controlled tests I usually did."

"Considering that they were needed to blow up the Amity Arena glass shield over the headmasters, I think they held up well," Blake smirked. "Mom told me about it, how you signaled for them to go back before Nora blew them up."

"Oh good, they did get that message. I couldn't tell, I had to leave to make sure Emerald didn't get too far with Crescent Rose. But then...well, everything happened."

"Yeah, they owe you a lot. Semester break's coming up soon, if you'd like you can come with me to Menagerie. They'd love to see you," Blake said easily.

Yang smirked, getting another glare from the faunus. Ruby wasn't entirely too sure why. Menagerie sounded great, but she couldn't leave the shop closed for so long now, and then close it again so soon. "Don't think I can, sorry. It sounds good though, so...maybe soon?" Ruby asked.

Blake nodded. "Sure, shouldn't be an issue."

"How is Menagerie? I've never been there, but I've wanted to go," Lilac commented from the other side.

"It's...kind of small, actually. Most of the island is inhabited only by desert and Grimm, but most of us have gotten to the point we can band together easy enough," Blake answered. "Kuo Kuana, the main city, is only about...a fourth or fifth the size of Vale?"

"That's pretty small then," Jasper pointed out. "That's smaller than even some whole cities over in Mistral. Argus I remember is almost the size of Vale."

"Argus is also practically a kingdom unto its own," Yang commented. "Pyrrha's from there, so every once in a while she goes back home for a bit. Jaune went with her this last time around."

"Really? Why?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. "That seems...odd."

"He has family over there too now. One of his sisters moved out there with her wife," Blake nodded. "I think they're either looking into or did have a kid."

"Have," Yang agreed. "Let's see...Jaune, Jaune...here he is, vomit boy," Yang said as she pulled out her scroll, heading down to the proper chat. She turned it around so everyone could see the pictures of a cute baby, still small in a carrier.

"Okay, that's cute," Lilac said easily, taking another drink of milk. "Those his sisters?" she asked as Yang moved the picture slide one over.

Ruby looked at the photo. One blonde woman who did look fairly similar to Jaune, if not a lot more feminine and taller, and older by a few years, was standing next to someone who was probably an Argus native, what with the much darker hair and tan.

"Just the blonde," Blake corrected gently. "The other is...shoot, Jaune told us this. Saphron and...Terra," Blake remembered after a moment. "The kids name is Adrian," she said, looking down at her own scroll.

There were a few moments of silence as everyone went back to eating. The wings weren't bad, but in Ruby's opinion they were kind of overpriced. She could probably do better, and would do better if given half a chance and opportunity. And she learned how to use a slow cooker for something more than chili.

But she could make a fairly mean chili.

It took another minute or two before Yang finally decided to plunge into the depths of odd conversation. "I got a question then, for you Rubes. When are you making the next Crescent Rose? Should be soon, right?" Yang asked. "Because you owe me a spar."

"I don't think she owes you a spar at all, you just want one and she doesn't have a scythe yet," Blake pointed out.

"Either way, I want a spar darn it. It's been a while since we've gone against each other."

Ruby giggled. "The last time we did, the arena decided to break down and we ended up having to team up to fight off the hardlight targets as they started to attack us," Ruby grinned.

"Dad has her marked down for the next few days, so I suspect soon," Jasper commented. Ruby glanced at him in surprise. She had no idea that Jasper had been looking at his dad's schedule for the forge. "He has me clean it out before you get there every time, so I have to know when you're coming."

Ruby smiled. "No wonder it's always so clean when I get there."

"Is the next time I'm going to have to clean it out after you leave going to be a giant pain?"

"Probably. I know Rubes at the forge," Yang shrugged.

"She always left the one on Amity pretty clean," Blake pointed out. "At least, the few times I went there."

"That one I had to make sure was clean, and by then I had the whole Second Semblance thing," Ruby commented. "It's not hard to keep clean if you clean up after every little bit."

"Or if you cheat and have the Semblance to help out with it," Lilac smirked. "Probably lots of cheating going on in that one."

"Actually that would've just made a bigger mess," Ruby answered. "Unless you meant Petal Burst, because yeah I did abuse that one."

"You and your Semblance abuses," Jasper rolled his eyes.

"Don't knock it, sometimes it's handy," Blake smirked before her form disappeared, the girl walking back with another round of drinks.

"Alright, now that's a mirage," Jasper grinned. Yang held her up fist and Jasper hit it as hard as he could, both Ruby and Lilac sending looks of agonized despair towards each other.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Ozpin's Exposition

"I'm afraid I'd much rather get you used to the Change magic before you start on something as difficult as temporal sundering," Ozpin said with surprising alacrity. He readied his cane, the Long Memory, once more, and Ruby sighed as she lifted up a random short sword that she'd grabbed off the shelf.

It did have a bit of Harbinger in it, in that it could flip the blade part up or down to fire bullets, but the ranged part was definitely not part of the actual design. The closest thing to regular mechashift that she'd made in a long time.

She still preferred a scythe, but the forging of Sundered Crescent would have to wait a bit. She was actually scheduled for the next day, and she wished that Ozpin had waited until she'd made it before he came off of his mountain called Beacon, but...well, he was the wizard called Ozpin.

He'd randomly showed up earlier in the morning, right after opening, and asked how many people she usually received in the mornings. After their last 'spar', which was the term that Ruby preferred but she was also fully aware of Jasper's 'complete annihilation' which wasn't far from the truth, she had thought that Ozpin wouldn't be seen down here for a while.

Since there was no one around, Ruby had abruptly started to ask him about how managed to bend time because that was so cool! He could just go woosh and then go behind someone, hitting them with the Long Memory before tripping them and propping them up on the cane again all within a second!

She could only imagine how powerful that ability would be against the Grimm. But Fria hadn't even known it was possible, and neither had Winter the one time that Ruby had brought it up near her when talking to Uncle Qrow and her dad. And if Fria had no idea on it, that meant it probably wasn't allowed to be done with the maiden's powers. But she had done at least a change, if nothing else. Which meant there were deeper magics, and that she could potentially access them!

Fria also had no idea that change has been possible with the maiden's powers, so as amazing as Fria had been at explaining what all the powers that she knew were and how to use them best, she didn't quite know everything.

"I have mastered change though!" Ruby lied easily. She brought up the shortsword just as the Long Memory bounced against her chest, and she went into Petal Burst. She'd have to keep it up just to be able to spar with Ozpin at all.

It was kind of shocking just how unimaginably fast he was. He was like that one that cartoon that Yang used to watch with the martial artists and the screaming and the powering up, except this was real life and she was on the ground again.

Darn it. She hadn't even seen him come from behind that time, and that was in Petal Burst! How was he so fast! Actually she knew exactly how, the problem was trying to actually handle it. "Also, how did Cinder give you any trouble at all if you're this good?" Ruby asked as she pushed herself up.

"I did let myself get rather rusty over the last decade or so," Ozpin shrugged. "Also, fighting Glynda is an excellent way to shore up defenses when fighting many pointed sticks," he finished. He gave a half shudder, as if remembering some rather painful experiences. Ruby couldn't sympathize, but having fought Cinder once she could imagine what someone like Goodwitch could do.

Especially when her boss essentially gave her free reign to beat on him as hard as she could.

"And if you actually have mastered the change magic, then let's see it," Ozpin gave a half smirk. He rested on The Long Memory as he took a small sip from a cup of what she knew what hot chocolate that he'd bought from the cafe down the road. "If you can do it in front of me, right now, then I'll start to teach you the time magic."

Ruby's eyes lit up, and she instantly activated the maiden's powers. She could do it, she would do it, she would totally change into a wolf and then be a temporally shifted wolf and wouldn't that be so cool she could just do whatever she wanted and she could just look at some Grimm and then go 'boom' and then they'd be cleared and it'd be the best thing-

"Still a faunus," Ozpin smirked gently as he took a small sip. "Good try though."

Ruby's wolf ears perked up even as she sagged. "Darn it, I thought I was close this time. Also, I just thought of another thing. The silver eyes thing."

"Yes? What about them?" the headmaster asked as he leaned against one of the displays. It was still in mostly bad condition but it had been enough to have the arena still working. Ruby knew that she'd have to work extra hard to get everything back up to snuff in the shop. After...

Well, after the tornado that was Raven, supposedly, and whoever it was she was fighting came through here. She thought it had been that weird scorpion faunus that she'd seen while getting on the Bullhead to Beacon that one time, but she hadn't seen him since.

And he had jumped out the window only a minute or two before she showed up, but she hadn't seen any sign of him.

"I'm just concerned about them. They're still silver now, right? Not the gold that some faunus have?" Ruby asked, her wolf ears bouncing steadily above her. She was good at this change magic by now. "Also, what was that big eye laser thing?"

"They are. They're a mix of gold and silver, I'll be honest. I don't think that Change would have any effect on them, all things considered. As for what they are...perhaps it is time to fully bring you in. I was hoping to wait until after you joined Beacon."

"There's more to all this conspiracy than just the maidens and magic?" Ruby asked. She blinked as Zwei barked up at her, holding a large water bottle in his mouth. "Thanks Zwei," she said, taking it out and making sure to grab a dog treat that she deliberately kept in her pocket for exactly this scenario, throwing it onto the far side of the shop. The dog gave a happy bark and went straight for it.

"There's much more. Even Qrow is not fully aware of everything, and I'm not fond of revealing secrets, but I think most of this has it's time to come out," Ozpin said quietly. "Perhaps...we should start with this..."

He looked away for a moment. "A long time ago, long before faunus walked on Remnant's shores, and before humanity died for the first time, there were two gods. The Brother Gods, they were called. One was a dragon made of purest gold and light, and the other of the darkest obsidian and shadow.

"They were known as the God of Light, and the God of Dark-" Ozpin started.

"That seems like a poor naming scheme," Ruby interrupted instantly. She gave a small pet to Zwei, who had sat down next to her with his glasses on, as if he was planning on writing another of his...novels.

The fact he could type at all was what really shocked her.

"Well, the people at the time weren't the best at naming things," Ozpin admitted. "However, to get back to the story, the God of Light was well known as the Creator. It was said that he created Remnant. The God of Darkness was the Destroyer, just as powerful as his older brother.

"One day, a woman came to the God of Light, telling him about her deceased husband, who had fallen ill and died. Restorative magic is the most difficult of all magics, and it's why I highly suggest you never try it unless you have absolutely no choice. And I mean this only if Salem herself were in front of you," Ozpin warned, his eyes narrowed at her. "Restorative magic is very powerful, however when the maidens were created they were never intended to be able to harness it."

Ruby blinked in surprise, but nodded as she took it in. She could imagine it would be, but at the same time wasn't Change in the same realm as the restorative magic? Wouldn't Change be even harder than restorative because healing magic was supposed to be all about the body returning to normal, whereas Change was literally changing everything about it!?

"The woman could not handle it when the God of Light said that her husband had earned his rest. And in her distress, she attacked the God of Light with her magic. It swatted the magic away without so much as a flinch, knowing her emotions to be hurt in anger and rage and pain.

"But the woman was clever, and so after being denied by the God of Light, she marched her way over to the God of Darkness, whom she told that his older brother had refused, without stating his reasons why-"

"Why was it?"

Ozpin blinked, not so used to getting kicked out of his inner thoughts. Ruby thought that was weird, he was the headmaster of teenagers and people in their twenties and even thirties at times. He should be plenty used to being interrupted.

"Mostly because it 'went against the natural order' I'd assume," Ozpin answered, looking away easily. "The God of Light was big on that."

"But he created magic."

"He did not. The God of Darkness did," Ozpin said. "Magic is a creation of the God of Darkness. However, when he resurrected the husband of the woman, the God of Light showed up, and punished the woman with eternal life. The God of Darkness, however, saw fit to reclaim his magic. He stole it, killing tens of thousands of people at once, before he left for the stars. Shattering the moon at the same time."

Ozpin paused for a moment, as if to let Ruby take in the grandiosity of the statement. "Alright, that doesn't actually answer anything. What does that have anything to do with the silver eyes?" she asked.

"While the God of Darkness, the creator the Grimm, had his gift of magic, the God of Light also gifted the people with power. Some of them had silver eyes, the power of his own magic and soul. He gave other gifts as well, but perhaps we should leave those for another time."

"...So the eyes are the power of a god?" Ruby summarized, her eyebrow lifting up. That made little to no sense, but if everything she ever asked Ozpin was going to be coached in fairy tales she should probably get used to it now, otherwise learning time magic will also be summarized as a fairy tale. She could just imagine one. 'One day, a person was going through a forest. They were tired of walking through this same forest, so they cut it down, but in their anger they realized they'd destroyed the natural beauty, so they sped up time to rebirth the forest. The end.'

It was the best of all possible worlds, because it explained absolutely nothing while not having any actual value to it! While teaching people lessons that they wouldn't remember five years from when they heard it, and only recalled it when they taught it to their own kids. Diabolical.

"Essentially, yes. Your soul powers them, much as it does your aura and the maiden's powers. But again, they are the same, and yet different."

"How do I actually use them though? The only time I've managed it so far was on complete accident when Cinder was about to kill Zwei."

Ozpin shrugged. "I honestly do not know. I'd assume it's much like aura or the maiden's powers. Push your aura to your eyes, and go against the Grimm."

"That sounds like an easy way to rupture your eyes entirely," Ruby said after a moment. She could just imagine her trying it only to have her eyes just 'pop' out of her head, and then she'd see somewhere else that wasn't out of her head and so she'd trip and fall onto some of the sharper weapons that she had lying around and it would be utterly gross and she'd just stare at-

"Perhaps it's best not to try...I'll talk to my fellow headmasters, see if they know of anyone who can be of assistance," Ozpin muttered after a moment. "I do suggest not trying to use the Maiden's powers at the same time, or pushing their power to your eyes, just as we don't know how they would mix."

"Probably for the best..." Ruby agreed after a second. On the other hand, having the ability to see somewhere where she wasn't was a fantastic idea.

Forging of Sundered Crescent

Ruby paused as she walked into the most common forge used by her. It was like walking back into a second home that she'd been missing, with everything exactly the way that it should be. The bars of iron and steel off to the left, the dust wiring and dust on the far right, and she'd even packed her own dust for this.

This was her forging day. But not just any forging day, which she normally had dozens of commissions. With Beacon starting to wind down for fall semester break, and with Flare and Pharos starting to fall in line at the same time, the commissions for her weapons had gone down, which left her either a day for nothing or a day for her.

And she had chosen this day for her. Before she even started to heat the forge up, she checked to make sure that there were gallons of water here for drinking use, that the oil barrels were filled with everything she would need. The windows were cracked, and she could feel the breeze start to come in.

She was going to be making her replacement for Crescent Rose. For Sundered Rose Copy. For herself and her mother, at the same time, using everything she learned and knew, everything that she'd ever imagined all in one.

It was going to be either the world's worst mistake, or the best weapon ever. There was really no middle-ground for this, she had to do it to her specifications. Not just regular specifications though, the hidden ones that she had in her head.

The ones written down used dust, and while it was possible she'd worked out the formulas for using ice and fire dust to do what she'd wanted to do, and it was basically impossible. The blade would shatter into steel shards if she tried it, even if she tempered it with dust.

The wind bullets on the other end would be easier, but it would still take dust, and that's what she was trying to avoid. She wanted to make sure that she'd never have to be without ammunition if she didn't need to be. And it had to be mechashift and rather light, so she can continue to fire it as a sniper rifle in short form and light enough to fit on her back.

She shrugged on the protective gear first, taking off her corset and blouse, leaving her in only a tanktop. Her usual combat skirt had been replaced by thin pants that she'd put the various protections on, such as knee pads or other similar armored wear.

She gave a half hop, hoping to psych herself up. She didn't need the specs on the scroll, but she threw it up on the wall anyways. Better to have it and not need it than to not need it and be at a critical juncture while she fumbled with the wind to turn it on.

Actually, she'd never tried turning on her scroll with just the wind. Was that even possible? Probably not, because scrolls tracked motion by heat signature more than anything else, but she supposed if she made it a hot wind that might do it...

Unless it didn't track motion by heat signature. But that was a plan for another day. Another day, and not something she'd need to worry about right now. No, right now was forging time.

Ruby didn't want to use pure steel. Pure steel was heavy, and not nearly as strong as she needed it to be. Even dust purified steel was heavier than it had any right to be.

But if she alloyed it with a lighter and slightly more durable metal, with a higher melting point, and mixed it with active gravity dust...she nodded.

If the gravity dust was active, and she needed to lessen the weight by nearly half, to make it easier to carry and yet contain enough weight to actually hit and do damage, and yet be able to support the magic she was inputting into it, she needed to use purity thirty seven, eighteen granules. She walked over to her briefcase that she'd brought with her, the one with the change of clothes for this specific thing, along with a variety of dust that she'd picked out in case she wanted to make any changes to the design on the fly, like she was doing now.

A small vial of purity thirty seven gravity dust sat in the corner, next to the other types of purple gravity dust. She counted out what she needed, putting it in another empty vial, as she started to stoke the forge.

To alloy a metal to one with a higher melting temperature, she needed to get both to the highest temperature. And that meant the forge, for her planned metal, needed to be really, really hot.

She turned on the maiden's powers, forcing fire into the forge. She needed fire not just in the forge but in the metal itself, which meant she was going to be using water magic, was she was not adept with in the slightest, as well as frost magic into the blade as the metal was being melted.

This was a magic weapon on another level unlike anything she'd ever done before. She reached for the two steel bricks that she'd need, each containing a few pounds of steel. Crescent Rose had had folding metal for it's scythe, allowing it to bend down and over itself.

Sundered Crescent was going to be much the same, with the counterweight being an axe rather than a secondary scythe. The pieces were all set in her head, but they had to be made of the same material, and that meant she needed a lot of metal.

The blade was the most important piece, and she was going to be doing it first because if the blade failed, as it probably would, it would be easier to replace than say, the folding metal pieces. She grabbed another block of her preferred metal, heavy as it was. It was no tungsten, one of the hardiest metals around, but nickel was no slouch in the melting department either. She also grabbed some copper, just for the color. Sundered Rose had been copper and gold colored, and she was going to mimic that look in the metal alone.

She took a deep breath, focusing on the maiden's powers. The forge was smoking hot, and she could feel the sweat starting to bead up on her forehead.

Ruby put one of the copper bars on the side, letting that one melt first, while the two steel and one nickel melted much higher. She wanted tungsten, but she hadn't been able to find any in time for the forging, so she'd have to do with what she got. The copper melted first, exactly as she knew it would, and she started to infuse the magic into it, heating it up and cooling it down at the same time. She focused on the wind element with the back of her mind, because this was the metal that needed to channel everything.

Fire, ice, and wind. Those were the elements she wanted to infuse, and she wished that Ozpin were here if only to tell her if she was doing it right or wrong. She'd had no idea what she did during Winter's blade forge to get it to be magical, but whatever it was she did, she needed to replicate it and with other elements.

The steel melted, and Ruby started pushing ice and heat towards those two too. They mixed with the copper, not alloying themselves directly but rather mixing it in an uneven coating. This type of forging was so bad, but it gave her how she wanted to alloy it.

The nickel melted last, exactly as it was supposed to, and she started to push fire and ice towards that as well. The ice actually froze it for a bit, despite the fire in the forge and around her. The anvil and the various chair was starting to looking kinda shiny, but Ruby knew that they could handle it. The forge itself was much hotter than just the air outside, after all.

Alloying complete, she pushed herself to keep the magic into it. Infusing fire and ice, and wind, into the same metal as she started to carefully pour some of it towards the mold of the scythe pieces. There were four main ones, that one that were serve as the biggest chunk of the blade.

She poured each of them, disconnecting them using her wind rather than her hands when she was done. Sweat rolled down her face as she kept trying to focus on the different elements, each one infusing the blade differently and yet all the same.

Once in the molds, she forced ice onto them, dunking them into the warm water. Which was, to the metal, freezing cold water, to solidify them for tempering.

The blade shattered instantly, massive steel spikes being shot out every which way. Ruby felt one lodge into her arm, and with nary a glance felt her aura start to heal it, augmenting her bodies natural healing rate. The other pieces were scattered around, and Ruby ignored them. That sometimes happened when dealing with metals and forging. She doubted her blacksmith friend would care, because he'd probably done the same thing by now.

Using the wind, she tore the pieces of the metal out of the molds that she'd used, carefully putting new metal into the same mold after cleaning it out.

She had to keep up the same elemental infusion. This time the blade didn't shatter upon contact with the water, so that was lucky, but it did almost ignite the oil, which she threw away as another failure.

It wasn't supposed to ignite the oil. The oil was supposed to be nonflammable for exactly that reason! Because when she was dealing with these high temperatures, there's nothing she could do except try not catch it all on fire!

The third one, though...the third one sat in the oil, tempering itself as she kept up the magical infusion, and it didn't shatter nor did it set the oil on fire.

She had done it, she hoped. She wouldn't know until she tried to force aura through it, which she couldn't do until the thing was fully done and mostly assembled.

She put the blade down, forcing the wind into the main section of the metal, as she forced the activated gravity dust into the metal now. Now it was the shaft and the main blade coverings, which would be the largest amount of metal. Ruby would do the shaft one first, if only because the wind element needed to be heavily imbued into this one if she was to make wind bullets at will and the idea was just so cool she couldn't wait!

She had to focus.

Focus. She pulled up the shaft mold using the wind, keeping a small breeze to push all the dust that inevitably came up out the window. If someone was walking outside and started coughing, then Ruby could honestly say it probably wasn't her fault. The forge was going hot enough to melt the metal, all that heat had to go somewhere!

She kept the wind going, trying to push the feeling of it into the shaft as she poured the four components. Fold up four times, depending on how long she wanted the barrel to go. One of those pieces she'd have to make herself, but the holdover piece was going to be fun to replace.

The metal cooled over the mold, and she hurriedly lifted it directly with the wind rather than her hands, as she put it into the water. She wasn't infusing water in it, nor fire, just pure wind at this point. She could almost hear the various bricks of metals being thrown around by the hurricane she was using.

The shaft exploded again, and Ruby felt another piece go into her leg, and she let out a minor curse.

She glanced at how much of the alloyed metal she had left in the forge, boiling happily. "I'm gonna have to use some more..." she muttered as she went to grab the bars. Back to the start...

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Showing Off

"That display needs to be over in that corner, and I think that middle one should be over in the left a little bit more," Ruby commanded as the moving guys slowly moved the display cases. It had been nearly a week since the forging of Sundered Crescent, and Ruby was still getting the hang of it, but she thought she had most of it down. But right now, her mind was focused almost solely on getting her shop back up and running after Raven and Mysterious Person X went and rampaged through it like a goliath in a casino.

Why that particular metaphor went to Ruby's mind, she didn't know but it was a fairly apt one if she had to be honest.

The moving guys were fairly large muscular men, the kind that Yang would usually drool over if she was here, and Ruby was helping them put all of the displays back where they needed to be, and used the opportunity to really kind of change how she wanted the shop to be laid out. She hadn't changed it at all since she first got it, so it was a perfect opportunity. The only thing that was truly built in was the hardlight arena, and really, Ruby could just design around it.

She even had a little hardhat on! As did Zwei, which was utterly adorable as the dog gave a whining bark as one of the guys went on lunch break and started to eat a sandwich.

The hole in the front had been mostly patched, and the window had been replaced. Insurance hadn't paid out nearly as much as it should have, but she'd been expecting that, especially as she couldn't yet afford camera security.

She glanced over at the one that had just put down in the back, used to contain the grenades and other live forms of ammunition. "Actually, move that one forward again," Ruby said, pointing to it. "It's really close to the lab, and if something goes off back in there it could set off the entire thing."

"That's your job innit? To prevent that?" One of the guys asked as he did as she said anyways. "I mean, I heard you were a decent weaponsmith."

"I'm pretty good, yeah," Ruby said. "But accidents happen. Like the incursion. Or the Breach. Or the Mech."

"Oh yeah? I heard about the mech thing. Would've been awesome to see it up close," another of the guys said.

"It was actually kinda terrifying," Ruby admitted, "because it's guns were huge! But they were awesome, they could spit out massive shells at nearly a hundred and twenty rounds per minute! I think the only thing that really prevented death right there was that the motors weren't used to lifting that much weight, those kinds of rotary guns weigh like thirty to fifty pounds."

One of the other guys laughed. "That's how you know she's good!" he said with a grin. "Alright, take a look at this one. How you thinkin?" he asked, pointing to the dust in the front.

"I don't like it there, it's been broken twice now, once by Torchwick and another by Mysterious Person X," Ruby said. "But I don't have much choice, dust is what gets people to look inside."

There was a small knock on the door as Yang peered in. "Whoo, looks like a construction zone in here!" she grinned.

"Is is an active construction zone ma'am," the guy working the dust counter said. "You can't be in here unless she says you can, and even then you gotta be wearing one of these," he finished, motioning to his hardhat.

Yang nodded. "Hey Rubes, can I come in?" she asked. "Blake's with me, but she doesn't know if there's a hardhat for her-"

"Of course there's a hardhat for her," Ruby said as she threw one with specially covered ear sections on the top. "And...I guess here's one for you too," she drolled, throwing another one.

"Sweet! Hey Blake, your gir-" Yang started to shout back before Blake jumped in, making sure that Yang couldn't speak anymore.

"Eh, you know the dangers," the foreman shrugged. "Alright guys, we got twenty more minutes before we move onto the next site. Anything else Ms. Rose?" he asked.

That felt weird hearing it from someone who was far, far older than she was. "Nope, I got the rest," Ruby nodded. "It's mostly just putting the weapons back on the shelves now that they're placed."

"Alright. Lunch break and we're gone then," Foreman shouted, and immediately the guys all gave a sigh of relief.

"Come on, we'll head upstairs," Ruby said, launching into Petal Burst as she flew upstairs. A few seconds later, Blake was following her, with Zwei abnormally close to her. Her eyes were definitely on the dog more than the stairs, and it wasn't a surprise to Ruby when she tripped on the second to last step.

Before she hit the ground, Ruby caught her easily. "Zwei, you know how Blake gets around you," Ruby chided softly. Zwei gave an uncaring bark as he panted happily, pulling the hardhat off of himself and then using it as a makeshift pillow. "I can't be mad at that," Ruby muttered.

"Thanks for the catch," Blake said, a small red patch on her face.

"Oh, did I miss something!?" Yang shouted from the bottom. "You both know how much I hate missing something!"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "There's nothing there to miss!" she shouted back as she pulled off her own hardhat. Blake gave a sigh of relief as she pulled off hers, and Yang barely made it up the stairs before hers w as off. "I'm surprised you were even wearing that," Ruby admitted at her sister.

"Wasn't worth the argument and I don't want to pull an Uncle Qrow and fly in through your window," Yang shrugged. Ruby nodded as she sat down. "So. New weapon," Yang peered at Sundered Crescent on her wall. "Tell me. Tell me tell me tell me-" she chanted as she dove onto Ruby, starting to tickle the girl mercilessly. "You told me that you'd get another one soon and that was over a week ago! What is it what is it what is it-"

"Yang she can't breath," Blake smiled as she pulled Yang off of Ruby. Ruby was laying there trying to not laugh.

"Her name is Sundered Crescent," Ruby admitted once she got her breath under control. "And...," Ruby said, before she just leapt up and pulled her new scythe off the wall. Now was the time for focusing on it, and showing it off.

It was a seemingly random box, similar to how Anesidora was stored when it didn't need to be used. It did have a hole on one end, and Ruby simply flicked it open. The whole thing weighed only a few pounds, less than most warhammers and about the same as Jaune's sword did when he'd first brought it in.

Each piece slowly assembled it to it's bigger form, the shaft connecting first and extending out as the same time the blade connected to itself. A long scythe blade extended from the front, while a large hammer head came from the back, mixed in with a few spikes. There was a spiral theme mixed in, a mixture of red and coppered gold going throughout the entire kit.

It weighed less than Crescent Rose did, and used about three quarters as much material as her original scythe had. "Alright, that's neat," Yang nodded. "Is that a longer blade head than Crescent Rose?" she asked.

"Yep! Made of a bit of copper for the color, mostly steel with a bit of rhenium mixed in, to help with the temperature nonsense," Ruby grinned. "And it's blade head is nearly an entire foot longer."

"You got much practice with it?" Yang grinned. There was a shine to her purple eyes that made Ruby know exactly what it was her sister was thinking.

"Not as much as I'd like. Want to fix that?" Ruby asked as she swung it around a bit. She pushed her aura into it, not at all surprised when nothing happened.

"Is it supposed to be magical?" Yang asked. "Because I know you were planning something, no matter how much you tell Uncle Qrow you aren't."

"I tried, but I don't know how I did it the first time around. So I don't think it is," Ruby admitted. "But on the other hand, I'm not going to rebuild something like this just because I didn't get it right away. On the other hand, this one won't melt until it gets about half again as hot as the fight with Cinder did."

Blake nodded. "That's an impressive blade either way. And it's transformation was much less noisy and quicker than Crescent Rose."

"Yep! I researched a lot on how to reduce noise and drag when doing the mechashift, and figured out how to make it go even faster than her original incarnation was," Ruby grinned. "Better of all," she muttered, before she made another motion, and the blade collapsed down to a full hammer form. "I can do half forms," she grinned, before pushing another button and putting it on her back as it collapsed down to its storage form.

Blake nodded. "Thanks for that. Crescent Rose was kinda noisy," she admitted after a moment. Ruby nodded. She'd encountered the same problem with some of the mechashift when she was using the wolf change. She really needed to get better at that, too. After all, Ozpin had said once she mastered that then he'd teach her time magic. She couldn't help but almost squee a bit, and she hoped that neither Yang nor Blake heard her, although the golden eyes of the cat faunus narrowing told her that she probably didn't keep it in as much as she'd liked.

It was to an empty shop a few minutes later when they all came down the stairs. "Yeah, Raven and whoever it was did a number on the shop, but I got most of the simple replacements out of the way already," Ruby was explaining as she stepped onto the shop floor.

"I'll say. Looks like a storm went through her something," Yang said as she glanced at one of the displays. "You aren't open yet are you? I'm surprised you aren't going with Blake to Menagerie."

Blake narrowed her eyes at her partner. Ruby wasn't entirely sure why though. "I want to, but with the shop in this kind of shape I need to be here to make sure it'll still be here," Ruby explained.

"It's okay. There's always next break," Blake shrugged. "I want to see what this new weapon of yours can do," Blake admitted. She reached behind her for Gambol Shroud, pulling it out silently. "And I'll be honest, I want to take you for a spin too. I, I mean-"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah it's gonna be great!" She said, while Yang started to laugh for some reason. She walked to the center of the arena, and dropped her scroll in the pedestal.

"Alright, but I'm going first," Yang said as she put her own scroll in. Ruby couldn't help but notice the large number of scratches on the screen, but as beat up as it was, the scroll was still in good condition.

Immediately the screen above the both of them flashed green, and Ruby saw her aura level rise to the top of the green bar. Yang's was also fairly high, but she must've been training or something earlier because it wasn't quite at maximum.

Her sister took a stance, and Ruby waited while Ember Celica folded out into the gauntlets that she knew so well. She would, she had to fix those things so many times. But she wasn't going to focus on their weaknesses now, she was going to spar. "Oh, one more thing, no maiden powers," Yang grinned.

Ruby nodded. "Wasn't going to use them anyways, but I'm okay with that!" she answered, folding out Sundered Crescent.

Sundered Crescent

Yang charged first, exactly as Ruby knew that she would. No maiden powers, but she was in control enough at this point that she wasn't about to let that get in the way. She ducked under the first punch, dodging and scattering into flower petals as the second one fired a large iron slug right where she'd been standing.

Ruby materialized behind her, Sundered Crescent at the ready with a head-chopping slice. Yang grinned as she almost danced to the side, letting the very tip of the blade just barely knick her, and Ruby could tell that she was starting to use her Semblance. That meant that she was on a time limit, because when Yang got full Burn, things started to burn around her. And right now, that meant Ruby herself.

A slice upward, rapidly followed by a hammer slam downwards only made Yang jump away, before she barreled in. She kept her fists level, and Ruby was now on the defensive as Yang kept one punch up, two punches nearer and nearer. Each one, Ruby could feel the strength her sister was giving off.

"One problem with a longer range there, sis. Once you get in it, you're still stuck," Yang noted easily. She was trying to get Ruby inside the area of Sundered Crescent.

Scythes were unique weapons. They weren't ever truly intended to be weapons, honestly. They were used for threshing wheat, more than anything. However, because the blade was so far along the shaft, it meant that scythes had an area far away where they couldn't hit anything, much as any other weapon, but they also had an area very close that was ineffective.

Most scythe wielders had a way around this. Uncle Qrow, for example, was well known for changing Harbinger back to sword form or just punching and kicking his enemy, even if they weren't a Grimm. At least, Ruby assumed that most scythe wielders had a way around this.

She did too, and she pushed aura into Sundered Crescent as she changed it to hammer form.

Yang suddenly blocked the blast of air that launched from the hammer head. "Hey, I said no maiden powers!" Yang shouted as she flipped onto her feet.

"That wasn't!" Blake argued. "The eye thing didn't turn on. That was Sundered Crescent!" she grinned broadly.

Ruby blinked, before she twirled Sundered Crescent's hammer form in her hand. "Wasn't expecting that, but okay," she said, before she swung it wildly towards Yang, hoping to get another blast of air.

Yang's hair might've been ruffled a bit, but that was solely because there was a lot of air being displaced, and not because of a large directed blast. "Oh come on!" Ruby shouted before Yang jumped on in again.

But with a hammer now, Ruby was in a better place to defend herself. She launched herself to the side, pushing her aura into Sundered Crescent just as she flipped the switch to scythe form. Yang was expecting the hammer still, and met with a blade made of fire.

The blade. The scythe blade had been changed from pure metal to pure fire. "Alright, that's awesome," Yang agreed, her aura flashing above her skin. "How does that one work?" she asked.

Ruby squeed loudly, "I have literally no idea!"

But she grinned, knowing that she had, in fact, made an actual magic weapon solely for her own usage. She would get this down, and with the gravity dust...wait, the gravity dust. Was the gravity dust she'd infused into the metal, the thing keeping it fairly lightweight because otherwise a weapon this size should weigh nearly three times what it did, also keeping the infusion from the magic? She wasn't using the maiden's power, certainly, and what other-

She had to dodge last second as Yang's fist reminded her that she was, in fact, in the middle of a spar with her sister. She pushed aura into Sundered Crescent again, changing it to the hammer form as she tried to sweep it away towards Yang.

A large wave of water flashed into the ground, nearly the same height as Yang herself, before she jumped to the side. "Alright, how many tricks does that thing have!?" Yang called out as she held her hands in a 'T' sign. "Come on, you have to have figured out the trick by now."

"It's my aura. When I push it into it, something happens. I can't decide what," Ruby muttered. "It just happens. Blast of air, blast of water, blade of fire, makes me wonder if I'm gonna get a blade of water here at some point."

"How does that work?" Blake asked from the sideline.

"No idea!" Ruby called back. "Alright, we good?" she asked Yang. The bruiser popped her neck a bit, stretching out her legs, before she nodded.

"Yep, we're good. Time in, Rubes!" Yang called.

Another blast of water, this time as a smaller wave the height of Yang's waist, but covering almost the entirety of the arena floor. Yang simply jumped through the water, before attempting to strike Ruby directly.

"Can you make that hot water!?" Yang shouted as Ruby felt Yang's fist connect with her chest. Her aura flared and flashed to her chest, and Sundered Crescent suddenly flashed out as much wind as there as had been during it's forging time.

Uncontrolled pressure, but pressure nonetheless, and Yang was forced to take a few steps back, her hair being flung. "It has a defense mechanism for you too!? Alright, how much do I gotta pay you to get me some of that?" Yang asked with a smirk, before she gave a quiet 'eep' and ducked under the scythe blade.

The regular blade, this time, not the blade of fire.

"Let me try to figure out some control over it first and we'll talk!" Ruby answered as she swung out one of her legs, lowering herself to make it harder for Yang to duck over the blade. The brawler merely smirked as she jumped over it instead, landing a solid hit right on Ruby's head.

Aura took care of it, naturally, and it put Ruby into the position to make another spin, this time using the blade upwards. Yang was already in the air, and hadn't come down quite yet, just in time for her to get slammed into the hardlight arena walls by Ruby's momentum.

"You know, one to one hits aren't the best," Yang said, her hair starting to take a small fire aura around it. Ruby gazed into the red eyes of her sister, knowing that her Semblance was in full go mode. "But, I'll admit, you've gotten better," she grinned.

Ruby smiled back, keeping a hand on Sundered Crescent. There was one other thing she wanted to check, and she hoped it would work as actually designed. She pushed her aura into the shaft of Sundered Crescent, suddenly pulling the scythe blade back. Yang jumped to the side.

It was a good thing that she had, because Ruby had envisioned a small wind bullet being shoved out of the side where normal bullets went. She hadn't quite the time to really test it yet, although she knew it would work, but she didn't know how what level her original design would work.

She was not expecting a blast of air that was the size of her being blasted out of the shaft of Sundered Crescent, sending Ruby backwards and slamming her into the hardlight walls.

It was no normal 'blast of wind' either. She saw it for just a moment, but she could see the blades of air within the blast. And the fact that it set off the hardlight walls too was even more impressive. She did however have to drop the weapon to avoid getting slammed in the gut by a full Burn Yang. She knew that if she'd gotten hit by that, there was quite likely a chance that her aura, currently at maybe 85%, would go down to around thirty or twenty. Full Burn Yang was terrifying.

Yang sailed over her head, and Ruby grabbed the tail end of Sundered Crescent, pouring her aura into it as she used Petal Burst to get away.

The wind magic tied with her Petal Burst, and somehow each petal became as sharp as the sharpest of knives. And Ruby naturally made hundreds of the darn petals as she flew.

She wasn't even sure how she was aware of it, asides from when she landed she saw Yang's aura flaring up. "Come on, I'm just starting to have fun!" Yang shouted as she took another two steps, the flames surrounding her burning at the sharpened petals. Ruby could see the aura flickers as the petals slammed against her sister, and she changed Sundered Crescent to its full rifle mode.

"That's still a gun, isn't it?" Yang asked after a moment, before she grinned and crossed her arms.

"Of course it is," Ruby admonished as she fired two rounds. First actual usage of the rifle portion in action, and with the smallest caliber, seemed to work alright. Even the recoil wasn't all that bad, which meant that she'd have to find something bigger if she wanted the recoil boosts like she'd been used to with Crescent Rose.

Yang uncrossed her arms, her hair burning bright behind her. Ruby knew what she was doing; deliberately charging Burn. And Ruby wasn't worried. Worse came to worse, she could Petal Burst out from any major attack that threatened to hit her. Normally at this point she'd have the wind helping her too, with small strikes of lightning. Ooh, that was a thought, too.

She glanced over at the aura meters, seeing hers at a healthy sixty, and Yang's at a mere forty. Any single one attack would probably do them in, especially if Yang was at full Burn like Ruby guessed that she was. Which meant it was time to work some magic.

Ruby pushed aura into Sundered Crescent, and just as the blade turned to fire, she changed the scythe to its hammer form. Yang did exactly as Yang was supposed to, charging in with one fist ready to go, and the other ready for the inevitable follow up.

The hammer didn't change, much to Ruby's consternation. However, she did feel the air start to freeze just as Yang's fist threatened to aim at her shoulder, and she started to flare aura out to Petal Burst away.

The hammer suddenly liquefied, before forming into an ice shield that absorbed Yang's punch, even through the Burn. The ice broke instantly, as Ruby guessed that it would, but it left Yang just wide open enough for Ruby to get her with the hammer swing on the other side.

Yang's aura flared as she was slammed into the arena hardlight walls. A moment later the blonde bruiser was back up, ready to throw down again before the arena walls flared red. "Uh...Ruby? What does that mean?" Yang asked after a second. Ruby looked around at the arena walls, before she put Sundered Crescent into its smaller form, putting it on her back.

"It means that one of us dropped below the twenty percent aura mark," Ruby answered. She glanced over at the aura meters, seeing her at a paltry thirty percent, which wasn't really a surprise how much aura she'd been throwing around. It was good to know that the amount of aura she pushed into Sundered Crescent determined the strength of the magic it used, but it was also good to know what kind of magic it would use in the first place. She really need to learn how to control it.

Yang was at nineteen percent, just barely. "Aw man," Yang said with a grin. "If you hadn't pulled out so many tricks I have a feeling I would've won!" she grinned. "Good match sis! Next time we'll have to try without special abilities!"

"That one you'd probably win," Blake admitted from the side. "It was a close match from here. And that was with all the bag of tricks that Sundered Crescent was putting out," she said.

"Ha, Blakey wants a go of her own doesn't she?" Yang smirked, nudging her partner with an elbow. Ruby grinned, flourishing Sundered Crescent with a small spin.

"I'd like to, definitely, but Pyrrha's calling us back to Beacon. Something about Weiss' sister, from the message that Nora sent Pyrrha," Blake shrugged. "So we'll have to head back."

"Darn it, I wanted to spend the day," Yang muttered. "Well, duty calls and all that," she shrugged.

Ruby nodded. "I get it. No worries, head back safe!" she yelled out as the two left. "Weiss' sister...wait, isn't that Winter?" Ruby muttered to herself as she walked up the stairs, intent on changing before she went back to work.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Fria's Last

Ruby glanced out at the rain slowly pouring down from the skies. She was dry and in her shop, yes, and it had mostly been fixed up from when Mystery Person X and Supposedly Raven had gone at each others throats in it, but that also meant not as many people would be wandering around. The displays had been fixed up, and there were a few that still had a few battle scars but Ruby wasn't too concerned. After all, this was a weapons shop. Half of those battle scars had been from Ruby herself having to deal with misfires.

Most of the display weapons had been check and double checked, and if they were particularly powerful, triple checked to make sure that they could each function as they should. Not many people even looked at the display weapons anymore. Most of the time her sales came from dust, ammunition, the occasional scroll battery because apparently no one else in Vale actually carries them, and commissions.

The sound of the rain outside was actually kind of soothing if Ruby had to be honest. It reminded her of autumn, her favorite season. Not just because of the powers of the maiden, but rather because it always looked like nature looked at the fireworks displays from everywhere else and said 'I can do better', and then did. And it was her birthday season.

So three good reasons for her, in her mind. Zwei was next to her, chasing after a string on a fan that Ruby had whipped up in a moment. He didn't like the rain, and as much as Ruby would have teased him about how much fun Angie would be in the rain, he still didn't want to go out much into it. But he was an aura-awakened dog, and that meant he needed a lot of exercise.

Her birthday was in a few weeks, actually, and she was looking forward to it. It would be her last one before she left to Beacon, even if it would be several more months until then. Dad had even texted her asking for a small wishlist of things that she wanted, and that asking for things for the shop would not be allowed.

It was hard to decide though. There wasn't much that she was actually wanting. Maybe that new scroll game, 'Death Battle', but she wasn't sold on having the sprites be as pixelated as they were. Maybe she should see it in action before she put it on a wishlist.

She could ask for pure metal bricks, specifically of tungsten. She'd wanted to use it while making Sundered Crescent, although it's first use in an actual spar made her wonder if that was such a good idea. Tungsten was the metal with the highest melting point, and she'd need a specific type of forge to be able to get to those high temperatures. No one in Vale had it, and she doubted that even Atlas did. Mistral did plenty of work with it though. Ren had once told her, in between the times of Nora drooling over some of her great hammers and rocket launchers, that his weapon, Storm Flower, had once been made of that material as a gift, but he'd had to exchange it out once a king taijitu had decided to try and eat it. Ruby didn't blame him for that, they were notorious for envenoming weapons.

And not in a good way, unfortunately.

That was a thought actually. "Could I create a poison weapon?" she muttered out loud. Zwei gave a roaring sneeze, shaking his head as fast as he could. "Yeah, probably not a good idea," Ruby agreed, turning the fan on a bit higher so the string went higher. Zwei went back to trying to bat at it, catching it in his teeth.

Her scroll went off a moment later. Ruby raised an eyebrow as she glanced at it. "General Ironwood?" she asked as his picture came up. "This is weird..." she muttered as she answered it. She left it on audio only, just in case there was some big secret somewhere.

Instead the scroll turned on, so both audio and video were turned on the other side. General Ironwood was there, standing at the bedside of a seemingly much older Fria that Ruby remembered her being. It'd only been a few weeks, a month and a half at the most, since she'd come back from Atlas. Fria looked as if she had aged nearly twenty years in that time.

Ruby really hoped that wasn't a result of Fria trying to learn time magic. "Alright," General Ironwood was saying, "Ruby's on. This is Ruby, right?" he asked.

She turned on the video, making sure to show Zwei in the background, as well as the door behind her to show that while she was technically working there was no one around. "Yeah, I'm here. What's going on, General Ironwood?" she asked. Part of her back started to tense when she realized that he only called her if something big was going on.

"Fria wanted to talk," General Ironwood said. "Alright, you're clear. Remember, no major secrets."

"Yes General, I remember," Fria muttered, her voice sounded aged and older than Ruby thought it was. "Hello Ruby. It's been far too long."

"It's only been a month or so! How've you been?" Ruby asked, grinning as she saw the eyes light up on the older maiden's face.

"I've been doing as well as I can," Fria smiled, before she gave a quick cough. "I just wanted to let you know in person that I feel my time is coming. I don't want it to be a surprise to you when you hear of my passing."

Ruby stared at her. She'd known that Fria was old, but to hear of her giving up on living so quickly? What was all this!? "You're not dying anytime soon!"

"Rage against the world all you want, we both know it's true," Fria muttered after a moment. "When you were here last, you talked of the various other things that the maiden's powers can do," she started to say.

Ruby nodded, and she activated the maiden's magic, quickly invoking Change. Immediately the large wolf ears that she'd grown ever more comfortable with invoking appeared on her head. "I got at least this far, but anything more than that is too hard at the moment."

"That is...incredible..." Ruby heard Winter's voice say from the side. "And you can do that just at will?" she asked.

"For the most part. The maiden's powers have to be active. I did it the first time while trying to figure out how to reset my leg bone when I crashed on the way back from Atlas because I remember Qrow's transformation and how he never seemed to have any broken bones but then when I tried it I apparently didn't have the proper founding of what a wolf actually looked like so it ended up making me a faunus instead," Ruby explained as quickly as possible.

Fria started to laugh, a wholesome and hearty laugh, before it quickly devolved into a cough. "Good to hear that you're experimenting with powers beyond our control and belief," Fria smiled. "But no bringing me back, alright? I don't want no necromancy."

"I don't think that's even possible."

"If it was, I'd have already done it," Fria muttered, before she gave a sigh. "Have you been able to keep up with 'Framing Charlie'?" she asked quietly.

The soap opera that she'd gotten into back in Atlas. Fria had always enjoyed watching it, and Ruby had learned to not mind it and had even gotten into the series before the end of her weeklong tenure there. "No, they don't have it in Vale."

"Probably for the best. This latest season went down the hill," Fria blew a small raspberry, before she faded back onto the bed. "It's good to see you again," Fria muttered. "Have you made any other progress on creating anything new?" she asked.

Ruby nodded. This was starting to feel more and more like a 'last conversation' thing. And the fact Winter was there, just off screen, meant that both of them felt it too.

Part of her felt like crying, even though she knew that she'd only met Fria for a week. And even then, the winter maiden had only really helped her create Winter's magic weapon, and that was it. But at the end of her life, Fria still felt as if she should talk to Ruby one last final time.

And that's what it felt like. The last time that Ruby would ever talk with her.

"Yeah! I made this awesome new thing, called Sundered Crescent, hold on a second," Ruby said with false cheer as she used Petal Burst to fly up the stairs, grabbing the scythe on its wall if only because she hadn't yet made the straps to attach it to her back, and flying back downstairs.

She made sure she was on video again before she unfurled it, letting it's grandiose over the top design be easily seen. "Something tells me it's quite vicious," Fria muttered with a smile. "Good," she finished quietly.

"Oh yeah, it's really cool! It can do this thing where wind just bursts out of it in every direction, and it can swap to a hammer and a gun!" Ruby grinned as she slowly devolved into talking about her real passions.

Fria listened carefully, and Ruby had no doubt that Winter was too. It wasn't exactly as if she knew this call was the greatest of secrets. Everyone on it knew of the maiden's power and of it being actual magic, but the real question was could anyone ever actually listen in or watch on these things? She doubted it. Cinder had come the closest with the whole CCT thing, and even then that was because she had been forced to be at the top of the CCT in order to use it, because Ozpin and Ironwood had locked it down.

"That sounds wonderful," Fria said. Ruby made sure to leave out the fact that it was a magic weapon. "I suppose it has our unique signature on it?" she asked.

That was one way to get around it. "Same as Winter's weapon, only more wild. Which reminds me, Winter, anything else going wrong with the sabers?" Ruby asked.

"Wrong? No, nothing," Winter's voice called out from the side. "Other than me accidentally cutting through Clover's pole back then, no. Why, have things been going strangely?"

"More than you know, and less than you'd think," Ruby answered ominously. "Speaking of, Fria...have you heard of legends of the silver eyes? Ozpin only told me one story, and it didn't really explain much."

"The silver eyes...I can't say that I have. They're an uncommon feature though," Fria answered uneasily. "If Ozpin doesn't know, or isn't willing to tell, then tell him that I said he should try to look it up. And tell my successor at the same time," she started to growl out before she started to cough.

"Fria, don't get worked up," Winter's voice said from the side. The specialist showed up in the video for only a few seconds, grabbing some water and putting it to Fria's lips.

"I know what the plan is, Winter. It's in your name. And when I go, my thoughts are to you. But Ruby...promise me one thing."

"You're not dying anytime soon," Ruby said with false certainty. There was something about this all that was throwing itself at her, shouting into her subconscious that this was going to be the last time she ever spoke to Fria.

"Promise me that you'll train her. Just as I trained Amber, and Amber...well, I hope she told you something about it."

"She told me to go and light the world on fire," Ruby explained. "She also forgot to tell me how to turn them off, so for the longest time they were just constantly on," Ruby grinned.

Fria started to laugh. "That sounds exactly like her! She was so excited when she found out the powers were with her. She always loved flight, and lightning. More than once she called herself a Lady of Lightning," Fria said, reminiscing a bit. "I suppose I'll see her on the other side..."

"Fria, you're not dying anytime soon," Ruby and Winter's voice overlapped with each other.

The older woman stared at the both of them. "Sure. I'll let you believe that..." she muttered.

Homework Panic

Ruby's mind was still on Fria's call earlier that day, and she was finding it hard to focus on the needs of the shop. The rain was still going on, and according to the weather forecast when Ruby started paying attention for all of ten minutes, it was going to be going on for a long while yet.

It hadn't actually started to storm yet, but it would.

Part of her wondered if she could make it disappear, but really, that would just throw all kinds of things out of whack. She had no business in deciding the weather of Remnant. The weather could decide for itself, and she would no care for it.

However, that was the only explanation she could think of when the door opened up and her dad walked in with a large cardboard box, soaked to the brim. "Heya Rubes! Sorry it's been a while, Patch has been crazy!" he said with a congenial smile.

"Oh, hey Dad," Ruby greeted as she leaned over. "What's in the box?"

"Your homework that's late."

"...What?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. The ears on her head tilted with her, and she felt them slowly backslide a bit. Wow, they were expressive, weren't they? No wonder Blake was so hidden all the time if she had these things to tell what she was feeling at all times. Who needs facial expressions when they have ear expressions?

"The homework that's due. For your work. For Signal."

"But...I got it all done! You said it yourself I even managed to pass with flying colors!"

"Last year's stuff," Taiyang snickered. "This is your last year's stuff. And your teachers are not proud of you being late on it."

"I didn't even know it existed! How can I be held accountable for something I didn't even know I needed to do!?"

"Never said the world's fair," Dad grinned as he put the box on the counter. "I did go through the trouble of sorting it out by date needed. I'll be back in a few hours for all of this. Hey Zwei, you want to go for a walk?"

Ruby balked at it as she opened it up. Books upon books upon books, and none of them were something that she'd read for fun. "Wait, you can't just take Zwei and leave!"

"Only for a few hours. Give you some time to finish it up, and I'll be back with more! And besides, this gives Zwei some exercise."

"It's raining outside."

Dad looked at her with a hand on his hip, his hair dripping wet. "Really? I hadn't noticed," he answered back sarcastically. "Come on Zwei, walkies!" he grinned.

The corgi betrayed her once more as he gave a happy bark, grabbing his leash and immediately heading over to her dad. "Zwei, no!" Ruby started to shout just as the door shut. He was surprisingly fast for an old man.

And that left her with all of the homework she needed to do, and she was definitely not in the right frame of mind to actually do it.

But...Dad was right, she needed to do it, and if this was supposed to be her last year at Signal...at least she didn't have to worry so much about the physical things, her dad already knew exactly how good she was. And to be fair, most of the others at Signal did too.

She took the top textbook off, seeing that it was just a basic math book. She could get that most of the way done without any issues, she was amazing at math.

Ruby sighed as she started to scour the textbook, taking care to make sure she knew of the reasons things were being taught. She could do the basics with ease, arithmetic was something she used all the time, and that's to say nothing of physics formulas and all that. Some of the formulas were going to be difficult, like derivatives and such, but she could have that done by the end of the day if she hopped on it.

The hardest part though was getting all of it done by the end of the day. Now Ruby was really wishing she'd put more effort into learning time manipulation, because then she could just...speed things by.

She blinked. Speed things by. That sounded awfully like her Semblance when she pushed too much aura into it, or when she couldn't turn it off for some reason or another.

Could she do the same thing here when she was actually trying to do it? She took a deep breath, and focused on Petal Burst, much the same way she tried to invoke the maiden's powers. The petals started flying around her, physical manifestations of her aura. She was moving faster, yes, but it hadn't affected her perception yet, not like how it did during its incontinence days.

She forced more aura into it, pushing as much as she could safely. Her body started vibrating more and faster, and she knew that if she took off somewhere she'd probably appear in an instant. She felt almost lighter than air at this point, but she was still sitting down without any issues.

Her perception hadn't actually gone up yet. It was still at regular human perception it seemed, no matter how much she looked and stared at a nearby clock. Ruby took another deep breath, getting some of the petals in it as she did so. She didn't cough though; they were her own aura, and wouldn't hurt her. They dissolved in her mouth the instant they touched her again, turning back into her aura.

She was already at her maximum of what she felt she could do. There was no more aura she felt she could push into her Semblance without overloading it, and she wasn't sure what the complications would be for overloading her Semblance. It was a subconscious thought more than anything, but the thoughts were still there.

It was at least, a good way of training her aura and getting it to extend. As long as she didn't do this all day every day, she wouldn't risk burning out on her aura usage. That would be bad. But at least for this she could do it without too many problems. She grabbed the second textbook, groaning when she noticed it was geography of all things. Last year's unit had been on Anima, the continent of Mistral. This year's unit was most likely on Solitas, the continent of Atlas and Mantle. Why couldn't geography just be simple and be easy, like math? But no, she had to pass geography too...

She growled a bit as she shoved that one off to the side, ignoring the flower petals as they floated around her again. She was doing it on purpose this time, so they wouldn't get in her way. Dust safety was the third textbook, a thin little pamphlet because most of the time it was 'don't use dust' or simply the safety guidelines, and the rest of the class was messing around various small dust samples. Fun class actually, that was one she couldn't wait for the Beacon equivalent, Dust Studies.

The fourth textbook was going to even more of a slog, especially because she already knew most of it. Weapon maintenance. Scratch that actually; she knew all of it. She'd read the entire book cover to cover back in her first year during the design phase of Crescent Rose. It's why even if someone did something silly like run their hand down the blade of Crescent Rose, they were unlikely to actually get hurt unless she wanted them to get hurt.

And hey waitaminute, hadn't she been excused from that class? Her eyes narrowed as she peeked in the box again. More books, but mostly worksheets and journals that she'd have to do over the next few days. At the bottom was a note written to Dad, 'Taiyang, not sure why you need this, Ruby's been excused from most of it, and Yang's already graduated, but here you go. The material for the fourth year of Signal,' with a signature of the headmaster.

"Really Dad!? Throw all of this at me when I don't even need it!?" Ruby shouted as the petals went flying around her. "Thanks for giving me a scare there," she muttered as she turned off her Semblance, giving the small pulse of aura that would have the petals dissolve. She didn't want to make it look like the weapon shop was one of those extremely odd places where they had flower petals on the floors and everything smelled of incense and rosemary and everything had this really oily look and touch about it and Yang always told her not to go into buildings like that because there was the chance she could get drugged and the oil feeling really got into her hands and made it hard to maintain Crescent Rose.

She took a deep breath as she rolled her shoulders. What were the required things that she had to do? Math, physics probably, and geography. Dust safety, as well, but most of that was in class work and so she wouldn't be able to do most of it without someone watching her, and there wasn't anyone she knew that could fulfill that role when she needed it. Besides, the teacher most likely already knew that she was good with dust safety. She was a weaponsmith, after all.

Language wasn't something she was excused from, so that was something she'd have to do, but those were fairly easy. The hardest ones were where they had to read the books and then get exactly the right answer on the weird tests the teacher gave, and they had a slightly different interpretation of the events they got a zero. Ruby had that happen more than once, if only because her interpretations were the literal ones, rather than the figurative ones.

Language, geography, math, physics, and...that was it, wasn't it? Four classes? She could do that. Maybe not in a single afternoon, but she could do it easily.

She'd need to get the hardest one out of the way first, geography. Which was going to be hard for her because it wasn't like they had a map of Solitas just lying around.

Ruby blinked. She...actually kinda did. Rather, just a call away. She got onto her scroll, after making sure the proper worksheets and journals were already out, before she sent a quick message to Fria, asking if she was available to help her with homework.

Rather than jumping at the chance, the response back was a solid no. 'Do your own work, Ruby! I'm not here to hold your hand! Also, Charlie and Robin went their separate ways again, so I guess this season's not so bad!'

Oh, right, soap opera was on. Fria was out then, Ruby grinned to herself. Well, that's fine, because she could always pull up Atlas' networks for the geographical areas around Mantle and most of Solitas. She'd never thought of it before because scrolls weren't allowed on Signal premises. She'd never had access to the CCT while on school grounds before, which was a real game changer when it came to looking stuff up.

Despite having nearly two months to catch up on, she'd actually managed to finish all of the geography stuff by the time that Taiyang came back in, a happy but extremely wet Zwei trailing behind him. "Don't track water in here!" Ruby commented as she saw the sopping wet duo.

"Sorry Ruby, but it's soaking out there. Say, can I use your shower?" Dad asked with an odd grin.

"It's not to wash Zwei, is it?" Ruby asked, narrowing her eyes a bit.

"...Zwei, she's onto us! Quick, before she gets us!" Dad suddenly said, racing towards her stairs and spreading water everywhere. Zwei was with him every step of the way. Ruby felt the wind pass her by as they ran up the stairs.

"Wait, no, not my shower, not like that, Zwei, no! Bad dog! Bad dad!" Ruby shouted as she followed them up the stairs. Cleaning dog fur out of her shower was not one of her favorite things to do.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Wolf Experimentation

"Okay, so it looks like the skeleton looks like...this," Ruby said, pulling up an image on her scroll. It was late at night, or at least late by her current standards, which was early by everyone else's normal standards. She did not like having to wake up as early as she did, but she knew she had to because the shop demanded it.

Zwei was next to her, completely clean after his little rendezvous with the rain a few days ago. Ruby still hadn't quite forgiven him or her dad for using her shower when soaking wet. It made the entire bathroom reek of wet dog for ages, and that was even before the nose thing.

The image that she pulled up was that of a wolf skeleton, put together with great difficulty. Ruby was just looking this up, but after the last few days of constant homework, she really wanted to learn time manipulation, if only because it would greatly affect how effective she was, and because it would allow to get her homework done faster.

Not necessarily faster for her, just in general. She'd accept that loss.

"Say, the skull doesn't really look like yours at all, does it?" Ruby muttered as she glanced at it. It was a lot more elongated than Zwei's nose and skull. "And the legs, obviously." Zwei gave a quiet bark. "Yeah, I noticed the tail too. That's a lot of pieces..." Ruby agreed, seeing the dozens of pieces that made up the tail that Zwei didn't have. Had he had his tail cut off, or was that just how corgis were?

She was around when Dad had gotten Zwei, and she definitely remembered Ein. Ein was a bit bigger than Zwei was now, and he was old when Ruby had known him. He liked particularly to give a high pitched bark and then tackle her, licking her face even as she was trying to laugh and pull him off of her. He wasn't aura-awakened though, and Zwei had learned everything there was to know a lot faster than Ein had.

But she couldn't remember if Ein had a tail too, or if that was a Zwei thing. Honestly, Ruby was more surprised that Dad hadn't gotten another dog yet and called it by some other name that didn't exist. Maybe Drei or something as vague and odd as that.

"Okay, same number of ribs, that's good. Why are your ankles near your knees?" Ruby asked as she looked over the back legs of the wolf. "That makes no sense!"

Zwei gave her a look that said, 'And bipedal humans do!?' which she had to admit, he had a point. Humans didn't make much sense either, in personality or in skeleton. But hey, faunus didn't either and she was capable of that change. Maybe sooner rather than later she'd get wolf down too!

And then she can learn other ones! Like a falcon or a bird...no. She knows exactly what her next would be. A hawk. Hawks were awesome.

And they actually sounded awesome too, unlike eagles which had that really surprisingly high pitched cry which most definitely didn't sound like it would come from an eagle of all things. Or maybe an albatross if she wanted to be really weird. Why an albatross? Because why not an albatross?

"Okay, next slide," Ruby said as Zwei hit the remote next to him. Why Zwei was the one in charge of the remote on these slideshows that connected to her scroll, Ruby didn't know but he hadn't messed up on her yet. Unlike her, who most definitely had.

Now it was the internal organs of the wolf, set to the various directions that a wolf could be seen in. "Okay, so most of everything's similar enough, just in an odd place," Ruby nodded as she glanced over it. "Stomach seems oddly small, but if it's like yours or mine it probably starts small and expands larger after a while," Ruby muttered.

Zwei nodded. He gave a small bark and a pant, and Ruby had to pretend that she understood him. Even with the wolf ears on top of her, she didn't understand him. Were corgis that far from wolves, or was that just because she was part faunus now? She'd have to think of something then.

"Alright, muscles," Ruby nodded as Zwei flipped to the next slide. This one shows the muscles as they connected to the skeleton. Ruby had to shake her head as she saw the massive amount of muscle particularly in the torso and head. "Wow, you have like nothing in your legs," she pointed out.

Zwei gave her a look, before raising his front paw, and putting it back down. She had to admit, he had a point. He didn't really have all that much muscle in his legs, did he? In the top portion sure, but in the lower portion which she guessed from his skeleton was actually his foot and wasn't that weird to think about, there wasn't much. It was mostly bone and tendon.

"Fur next?" Ruby guessed, and Zwei gave a bark as he flipped to the next slide, showing the full wolf with all of its skin and fur. "Okay, I think I got the handle of it. I know what I need to focus on now!" Ruby muttered, as she channeled deep within the maiden's powers.

She found Change easy enough, she'd been doing it so much going back and forth that it was almost second nature now. Blake especially liked it for some reason.

But now she was going deeper into that...branch? If the powers were a tree, then Change would be a branch, and each transformation would be a stick or a leaf. Something like that. She was just trying to master one particular leaf. Although, really, for her it was much more of a...weapon! Yeah, a weapon! The powers were the shaft, change was like a mechashift option, just like the elemental powers were. Each change was more of a bolt.

She probably shouldn't be doing this alone, but she had Zwei here, and the magic powers had never actually hurt her yet unless used by another maiden. Even then, Fria only used hers to annoy Ruby. The only one that had even partially threatened her so far was Cinder, and Cinder was only half-maiden and all crazy. She thought of the wolf and everything that made it. The skeleton, the tail, the muscles, the organs, the skin, the fur, the nose...she envisioned each part of the change.

Which is why when she opened her eyes after the slow burning feeling finally left her body, that was disappointed that she was not in a wolf's body. Instead she was in the same one she usually was, complete with wolf ears, and a distinctive pain in her backside.

Ruby let out a low groan and sat on the couch, saying, "I'm never gonna get thi-ow!" she muttered as her backside collided with something.

She tried to turn around to see what was causing her so much pain, but her skirt was in the way, and with a minor growl...which may or may not have been intensified by the change she was trying to inflict on herself she couldn't actually tell, she shoved it away.

A black wolf tail. With a red tip at the end, not blood. "Huh. Well I guess I did something then," Ruby muttered as she looked at it. It felt real, and she definitely had felt pain from it before which was really odd because by all rights it shouldn't have been painful. "This look normal to you?" Ruby asked Zwei, staring at the tail.

He gave a cautious bark, before he pulled her scroll out of the projector, and highlighted a small figure on the screen. "I'm not calling Blake for something like this," Ruby commented deadpan. Zwei gave a happy pant but whined anyway as he slid off the table. "Fine, let's just...see how this works..." she said, sitting back down again. She made sure to keep her back straight, and this time the tail wasn't accidentally sat on. Kind of comfortable if she had to be honest.

She felt it move from side to side as her satisfaction with it started to rise up, similar to how the wind acted like a love-lost puppy at times. It did brush against her pillow, and instantly threw it against Zwei on the floor. "Oh shoot, sorry Zwei!" Ruby said as the tail kept going back and forth. It was just a pillow. He'd been hit harder than that by Yang at full Burn before, he'd be fine.

Ruby was actually pretty sure he could shrug off almost anything truthfully. She wasn't sure if he had a Semblance or not, but she wouldn't be surprised if he did. Maybe it was just bouncing off the walls or something. She got up to look in the bathroom mirror, seeing if there was anything else that might've changed. Her eyes were still silver, she noticed, and the ears were a bit more pointed on her head. Her eyes were a bit rounder now, she noticed. Normally her irises were easy to read, but now there was more pupil than there normally was.

And of course the tail. It was hard for her to check, considering she had to turn and crane her neck to see it in the mirror. It was surprisingly long and kind of fluffy. Not as long or fluffy as other dog's tails that she'd seen, but still with a surprising amount of fur on it. It didn't wag in the traditional way that she expected a dog's tail to wag, instead it kind of sat there, only moving around when she wasn't thinking about it. It was mostly black fur, but with a few red highlights to it.

It extended down to slightly below her knee, getting thicker as it went until it reached the three quarters mark, then the fur slowly shrank back down to normal size. Almost kind of like some kind of brush. "I don't think I should let anyone see me like this, honestly," Ruby said as she kept trying to chase her tail to see it and give it a better look. It was connected right below her tailbone, where if she'd had a tail as a faunus that's where it'd be. But she didn't think she was still considered a faunus. Faunus only had one trait, not two.

"Not see you like wha..." there was a voice behind her, a slight high pitched voice coming from a scroll, and Ruby immediately slammed the bathroom door shut.

"Zwei, why did you call Blake!?" Ruby shouted through the door. She heard Zwei give a happy little bark, and she heard him dance towards his food bowl. "Zwei, no, bad dog, no food, Zwei!"

"Ruby? Ruby what's going on?" Blake's voice said through the scroll. "Hold on, I'm getting Yang, we'll be right there," she said.

"No, it's fine! Absolutely fine, everything's peachy!" Ruby said quickly, thinking of something, anything, that would stop this situation. She could...just change back! Yeah, that'd work!

If she'd gone deeper into it, then obviously she could go deeper to get back out of it! That was obviously how this worked. She reached into the Fall Maiden's powers, going back into the form that was Change and heading towards the transformation bolt. Specifically the wolf transformation bolt, and tried her hardest to change herself back to fully human again.

There was a slight burning feeling behind her, and on top of her head, but by the time that Blake and Yang showed up, both of them riding Bumblebee at speeds that Ruby knew was considered 'dangerous', she was relatively back to normal. The two of them headed upstairs even before Ruby could tell them everything was fine, and then she just got the look that said 'explain' from her sister.

"Zwei sure does some weird things," Yang noted as Ruby started to recount the situation. "But I don't quite understand why it's so bad?"

"I think I get it," Blake said, her face flushed. "But...can you do it again?" she asked. She had an odd look to her. Ruby compared it to a squirrel that had never seen an acorn before.

She had managed to change back into her combat skirt just in time. "I...can try, I guess. It's kind of embarrassing though."

"Should be fine, can't be any more embarrassing than seeing Jaune in his onesie," Yang shrugged.

"Whatever did happen to that? He suddenly stopped wearing it one day," Blake noted as she sat down on the couch. Ruby was only partially listening in.

"Oh, Pyrrha and I burned it without him noticing. Have you noticed how much she stares at him now that he's forced to sleep shirtless? If she had it any worse it'd be in big neon lights," Yang smirked.

Ruby felt for the mechashift form, and felt for the bolt. It was right there, and she didn't just stop at the faunus one that she'd practically mastered. No, now was the deeper one. "Oh that's why it's embarrassing..." Yang smirked as she looked over the tail. "Also, that's neat." Ruby felt it start to go from side to side, and she felt her face start to heat up.

Blake was simply staring.

"Do you think you still count as faunus?" Yang asked with a tilt of her head. Ruby shrugged, the tail moving behind her without her thinking about it. It hit a pillow off the couch and knocked it back onto Zwei, who gave an offended yip.

"I have no idea. Two traits, so...I don't think so," Ruby shrugged.

Blake kept her staring. "It's...not unheard of. Sienna Khan, the current leader of the White Fang, has two traits. If anything you'd probably just be seen as rare."

"Huh. Guess you're still a faunus then!" Yang smirked, nudging Blake a bit. "Come on there Blake, Ruby can send you pictures later."

Ruby tilted her head in confusion. She felt the ears tilt the same way, and she almost fell over before the tail re-balanced her. Huh. So that was the purpose behind the tail...

Team PABY Luncheon

"Hey Ruby. Glad to see you, it's been a while!" Jaune grinned from the other side of the table. Next to him was Yang, glaring at Blake about something or other.

Ruby nodded. "It feels like it's been a while, but wasn't it only like two weeks ago?" Ruby asked, tilting her head a bit.

Jaune blushed a bit, stammering out, "I mean yeah, but it feels like it's been a while..." he said quietly. He glanced towards the empty chair that they had saved for Pyrrha.

Ruby still wasn't quite too sure why she was here, honestly. This was one of those Peabody lunches that by all rights, she was not a part of team PABY. But Yang had randomly messaged her, saying that they were in Vale for the day, and while the weather was letting up they should go get lunch.

She didn't particularly want to, but considering that she still owed Blake a spar and wanted to see how Sundered Crescent would hold up against Pyrrha Nikos, she ended up putting an 'out to lunch' sign on the door and leaving Zwei in charge of the shop for a bit. That may come back to bite her in the butt, but Zwei was surprisingly good at working the machines, and he was smart enough to know not to let people in.

This wasn't a fancy restaurant or anything, just one of Yang's particular favorite lunch places. Blake had a favorite seat, which the cat faunus was currently sitting in, a thick book in her hands as she read through it. It was one that Ruby hadn't read before, so it was either out of Beacon's library or she was going to be borrowing it next.

Pyrrha was at the counter, ordering all of their food at once. She had a small list in her hands just to make sure that she ordered everything, but she never needed to look down, not that Ruby was surprised. They were Huntresses and Huntsman, and that meant they needed a lot of food.

Ruby glanced around at the restaurant. It was one that she hadn't been to before, not quite cheap food but considered decent. "Pyrrha wanted me to ask you, Ruby, if you'd be open to doing a demonstration of Sundered Crescent at some point," Yang smirked. "I couldn't stop talking about our spar a few days ago."

"Yeah what was that all about?" Jaune asked. "Something about a magic weapon or something?" he said, leaning down towards her.

"Sure, it's not a secret," Ruby answered, pointing to the small version of Sundered Crescent on her back. It was good to have a familiar weight there, and Sundered Crescent weighed only a little lighter than Crescent Rose did. "I still haven't quite gotten the hang of everything it could do yet, but it can do a lot."

"Is it a he, or a she?" Blake asked from the side. Her eyes hadn't left her book, but Ruby could tell from her ears that she was listening in anyways.

Ruby shrugged. "I'm not sure yet. So right now I'm alternating between 'it' and 'they'. Once she speaks to me a bit more, I'm sure I'll figure him out."

"Okay, now I'm just plain confused," Jaune muttered quietly. "But weapon aside, how does that work?"

"That, I have no idea," Ruby admitted. "I know that I worked with Winter's weapon over in Atlas that one time I was over there for a week, she wanted me to reforge her sabers, and to compare them to the ones made by the Atlas blacksmiths."

"And? How do they compare?" Jaune asked.

"It's pretty obvious that Ruby's is superior," Blake defended from the other side. "But I want to know by how much?"

"It's Ruby," Yang smirked. "So probably a lot. And?"

"Well, the initial forging part was easy. Penny, you remember her right? The girl with Floating Array?" Ruby tried to remind them.

"Oh right, the robot!" Jaune snapped his fingers.

Ruby stared at him. The what? Blake's ears turned downwards and Yang facepalmed hard, and Pyrrha just sat down a moment later. "Food's ordered. What did Jaune say now?" she asked with a pleasant smile.

"Oh, just let Ruby know that Penny was a robot," Yang said. Ruby blinked. So she hadn't misheard him. Penny...was a robot? And she hadn't known!? That was so cool how did she miss that how many other things had she missed while she was over there now she absolutely had to go to Atlas at some point and ask her so many questions could she shoot laser eyes or what was the biggest ordinance she could carry and what was the design of Floating Array and was that...that was why it was called Floating Array! Now wonder they were coded and programmable weapons!

"And now she's squeeing. Yep, there is it," Blake muttered as she winced. Ruby forced herself to calm down a bit.

"Sorry Blake," Ruby apologized. "I just had no idea. Is that why the Tri-Hard was so good against her?" she asked. Pyrrha rolled her eyes goodnaturedly.

"Yes, it is. She hasn't sent a letter in some time, but the last one she sent she mentioned getting an upgraded chassis," Pyrrha said, "one that wasn't electrocutable or magnetic. It's why I asked you about the Crescent Rose material."

"Eh, that's still magnetic. At least the blade was, because steel has iron in it," Ruby shrugged. "But that's so cool..." she muttered.

"Penny aside, what was she doing there?" Jaune asked.

"She was looking over my shoulder, trying to see the difference in what I did versus what their blacksmiths did. I did think it was weird but then Fria started to mess with me and you know how hard it is to keep steel molten when you have someone constantly blowing cold air directly on the metal?" Ruby asked. "Because it's very hard. And I ended up getting the wind stuck with it because you know, wind's easy for me."

"I'm surprised you didn't go with some kind of ice thing in the blade," Blake admitted. "Considering her name, Winter and all."

"It's not like I had a choice. I had no idea what I was doing. Still don't, not really," Ruby said. "It wasn't until after she started practicing with them that she realized pushing aura into the blade extended them. Invisibly."

"Invisible?" Pyrrha asked, her eyes lit up. Of course the champion would want a challenge. That did lead Ruby to wonder, who would win? Pyrrha or Winter? Her money would be on Winter, but Pyrrha was a good guess too. She'd fought people older than Winter in the Mistral championships.

"Yeah. Invisible extensions of the blade. It kept the same curvature, and it depends almost solely on how much aura Winter pushes into it."

"Interesting that it doesn't just make it tougher like the rest of our weapons do," Yang said, her arm on the side. She glanced up and gave a wave to the person out back, carrying up a large tray of their food. "Ah yeah, food's here!"

"Oh good," Blake said as she calmly bookmarked her place in the book and set it down. Ruby caught a glance of the title 'The First Lord's Daughter'. That sounded exactly like the kind of book that Blake would read...and the kind that Ruby would probably read later.

"What kind of things have you found your new weapon to be able to do?" Jaune asked once the person left, the large tray sat at their table. Towers of fried potatoes, burgers, and even a few of the hotdogs and buns graced the tray. Jaune was the only one who didn't immediately reach for his food, a fact that Ruby could tell he quickly realized was a mistake.

Even Pyrrha was rapidly grabbing food from the tray to put it in front of her. "I don't think I've even found all of them," Ruby answered as she bit into her food. She had to admit, Yang was good when it came to choosing where to eat out. Nice and juicy.

Jaune's hand snapped towards a hotdog, only to blink and stare in despair as Blake grabbed it up right before he got there. Then he moved towards a small pile of fries, and Yang grabbed those before he could move more than a few inches. "Come on, at least give me something," Jaune complained lightheartedly.

Pyrrha gave him a soft smile, before she moved one of her burgers and buckets of fries over to him. "Thanks Pyrrha!" he smiled at her, and she returned it just as much.

Ruby glanced over at Yang and Blake, who were having their own conversation with their eyes, but there was a lot more subtext in theirs than in Pyrrha and Jaune's. "So far I've found a burst of wind, a blade of fire, making a large wave, ice, and a shield," Ruby explained as she finished the last bite. She used her Semblance to grab a basket of fries that was placed right in front of Yang, her sister not realizing what happened until she saw the petals, and glared over at Ruby.

"A shield? And a wave?" Pyrrha asked, her eyes aglow with curiousity and excitement. "Yang, I don't think we're doing anything else today. Can we head over to Summer's Weaponshop and-"

"Hey, I got dibs on next spar," Blake commented with a sly smirk. Jaune rolled his eyes, as if there was some joke on Team PABY that Ruby didn't understand. "But...I don't think we're doing anything."

"Nah, it's Team SILV's turn for buying groceries, and that can't wait for us unless you only all want pancakes for a while, plus whatever else Ren can convince Nora he can make," Yang said as she leaned back.

Jaune froze. "It's Team Silver's turn? Shoot...well, there goes my order," he complained gently. "Why can't we do both? I'm sure you can get Bumblebee down here and just ride up. The rest of us can walk."

"Tomorrow's a weekend too, so if you want you can feel free to stay the night," Ruby said. It was small and be cramped, but it wasn't as if they hadn't done it before. When she was in Atlas apparently they stayed over all the time. Ruby was still finding things in the wrong places from when the four had needed them.

"I'll take you up on that," Blake answered instantly.

"Blake...you're caught up on all of your homework right?" Pyrrha asked with a disturbingly matronly tone. The cat faunus froze for a bit, before she slowly nodded her head. Ruby had no idea what was going on as both Yang and Jaune shared a knowing look between the two. "Then I have no problems with it," Pyrrha finished.

"Your team is weird," Ruby said to all four of them. Yang started to giggle, before it evolved to the deep laugh that Ruby knew so well.

"Oh it's even weirder than you think!" Yang grinned. "It's great. I love this team," Yang muttered. "It's like a never ending supply of the worst dramas in the world."

"You mean a soap opera?" Ruby asked, her head tilted a bit.

"How do you even know of those?"

"Because she reads?" Blake offered. "It's not that hard to realize."

"Plus Fria kept watching one in Atlas. We don't get it here, 'Framing Charlie' I think it is?" Ruby asked.

Jaune nodded, and all four heads turned to him. "Yeah, I know that one. My sister in Argus was watching it last time I was there, and she managed to get a signal last time I was up in Ansel. So I'm pretty sure that my entire family's watching it now, except maybe my dad."

Pyrrha flinched. "My mother was into that one as well. I never quite got into them, too much just seems...fabricated."

"That's kind of the whole point," Blake suggested. "It's fabricated to be so fake that it can't draw real emotions out." Ruby stared at her for a moment. "One of the goals of the White Fang was to learn about Atlas and Mistral technology, and how they could be used by us. Are you really surprised that there was an actual rumor that we were supposed to go into the recording session of one of those soaps and start to soapbox the faunus?" she asked. When she waited for a moment to get no answer. "Thought so."

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Scroll Calls

"Are you sure it's okay for me to be here?" Blake asked again from the couch. She had on one of the nightshirts that Ruby had lying around, freshly laundered. Or at least Ruby hoped it was. "I mean, if you were supposed to be talking with them right now, I don't think Ironwood would like it if I was here..."

"Should be fine," Ruby said as she projected her scroll to the wall. "Worse comes to worse, Ironwood just says no, but that's unlikely. He hasn't said no yet, although he's had plenty of opportunity."

Ironwood's voice spoke out from the scroll as the picture on the wall changed to that of Ironwood. "And had plenty of wanting to, as well," he said. "Hello Ruby. And...Ms. Belladonna?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. He looked slightly more haggard than usual, but at the same time his back was still far too straight and Ruby could only assume that he was standing next to something for his back because she didn't think people actually ever stood that straight.

"Hi General," Ruby started. "Just...here to see if either Fria or Perry is free," she asked. Ironwood blinked for a moment, before he looked down to some papers.

"Fria is...not free, unfortunately," General Ironwood said quietly. "She's watching that show again, you know the one. They're running a marathon, so even Winter won't come out. I swear, if Winter gets hooked on it too..."

"You still have the Ace ops!" Ruby grinned.

"And thank the gods for them," General Ironwood murmured. "Perry though should be free. Hold on, I'll switch you over to the prison compound."

"Wait, he's still a prisoner? I thought they were supposed to be free!" Blake started to ask as the image changed to a generic Atlas picture. A moment later there was an operator with a full face mask on.

Ruby nodded. "They will be, but right now they barely unlocked their auras. So they have to train them for a bit, give them a crash course in being a Hunter, before they send them out there," Ruby explained.

"Ruby Rose, age sixteen, calling for...?" the operator on the other end started. "Please don't say Taurus, please don't say Taurus..." he murmured under his breath. It was only because Ruby had the volume all the way up she heard him.

"If Adam's there, I'm not," Blake answered instantly.

"Just Perry!" Ruby grinned. The operator sighed, mirrored by Blake a moment later, as the image changed again to the generic Atlas one.

"How did you meet them?" Blake asked, tensing up a bit on the couch. She must've felt weird for not wearing her usual Huntress gear. "I don't recall seeing them ever in your shop."

"Oh, I made a bunch of guns for the White Fang for the Breach," Ruby admitted as she shrugged her shoulder. "I didn't know it was them until the day of the Breach though."

"...I did tell you to stay away from Adam, didn't I? You remember that, right?"

"Of course I remember that. But you never told me a last name, and he never told me his last name, so I never connected the dots!"

Blake stared at her, the ears drooping slightly as the image on the scroll changed again. This time it was a prison camera, with a deer faunus that Ruby knew surprisingly well. "Perry!" Ruby grinned. He looked healthy, his antlers having grown a bit larger. He was wearing a prison uniform, but it was definitely his own, if anything. It wasn't pure gray, but rather a dash of colors of green and white, Vale's colors, and his arms looked more muscular and toned.

"Ruby!" Perry answered in kind. "Good to hear from you, I thought that seeing you here was gonna be the last time. I didn't know they did video calls!" he grinned.

"I didn't either, but I thought I should check anyways," Ruby said. "How's everything going?"

He shrugged. "About as well as I'd expect. On the third year of most academies now, at least in terms of combat rating. Not like Beacon or Atlas, but the preparatory ones!" he said.

"They're having you go through basic school?" Blake asked, her eyes wide as she leaned forward.

"I...Blake!? Oh shit, sorry, Ms. Belladonna," Perry started to say before he stood up for a moment, giving a kind of salute before he sat back down. The guards in the background glanced at him and started to reach for their weapons, before he sat back down.

"I was never a leader...don't salute me."

"Sorry, force of habit," Perry said. "Also...uh...I wanted to make sure Adam didn't think it was you. I don't think he can hear me from here. Having you leave drove him up the wall, and he only recently started to come back around. I think that seeing you again wouldn't be good for him."

Blake shook her head. "No, it wouldn't be. Ruby, I really shouldn't be here," Blake started to say.

"A combat rating of a third year preparatory! You've only been there like a few months! You all didn't seem that advanced down in the Breach. Except for the big guy, what was his name?" Ruby asked, completely ignoring Blake's wish to disappear and Perry's wish to have her disappear.

"Bane," Perry sighed. "And we weren't totally incapable. We were second year by the time we were captured. But I mean, third year in a few months is pretty good, right?"

"Better than most," Ruby agreed. "And I bet all the recruits are looking up to you all!"

"One can only hope," Blake murmured off to the side.

"Most of the other recruits don't really look up to us, but rather as a target to beat. We're topping the leaderboards when it comes to teamwork and tactics, and if we keep going like this they said that we may make it to the Specialist's if we keep going. You met Marrow right? He's-"

"The one with Fetch!" Ruby's eyes glimmered. "I totally remember him, he was great! The way he'd just be like 'woosh woosh' and then yell out 'stay'! He was so cool!"

"Sounds like a-" Blake started, before Perry gave a sarcastic cough. "He is, isn't he?"

"Dog faunus."

Blake cursed under her breath. "Even in the Specialist's they discriminate against the faunus. Is nothing in Atlas actually good at weeding it out!?"

"Admittedly, I talked with him about it, Ms. Belladonna, and his Semblance is just so happened to be activated for that. He called the weapon Fetch as being ironic, considering it's a boomerang and he's a dog faunus. He did it to himself more than anything."

"Are there any others?"

"There's a few," Perry admitted. "None like Marrow though. He's part of the Ace Ops, or Ironwood's top Specialists. Ironwood doesn't tolerate it, neither does Winter whenever I see her here, but most of the top brass turns a blind eye to it. But it's not nearly as bad as it is in Mistral."

"But that's where-" Blake started, before she fell back onto the couch. "I...this is just going to be bugging me for a while."

"Sorry Ms. Belladonna, but it's how things are. On the other hand, we've proved to a lot of people here, faunus and humans, that we only wanted change to help others. And Adam's under the guidance of the Ace Ops now."

"Any word on what's going to happen to him?"

"There's talk of sending him back to Menagerie with a few of the other Specialists to open a Hunter preparatory academy, similar to what we're going through or what they have in Mistral and Vale," Perry said, "But I don't know any more than that."

"I don't think Khan would like that..." Blake murmured. "Wonder if I should warn my parents..."

"It wouldn't be a bad idea," Perry agreed. "As for you, Ruby...is that a new weapon I see behind you?" he asked, his eyes starting to glint up a bit.

Ruby's eyes lit up as she raced to grab Sundered Crescent, showing it off to her old friend. "Yeah! Sundered Crescent, a mix of Sundered Rose Copy and my original Crescent Rose!" she bragged, knowing that Atlas would be listening in. Naturally she wouldn't mention anything that was blatantly magical if only so that way word wouldn't get out. Ruby did know the meaning of secrecy, she just didn't like using it.

For another few minutes they talked, until one of the guards calmly put their hand on Perry's shoulder. "Hey, time to try to wrap it up. You're due in the academy in thirty," the guard said, just loud enough that Ruby and Blake could catch it.

"Alright, well, you heard him. Thanks for calling Ruby, and feel free! It's great talking up again, and uh...I won't tell anyone about you and Ms. Belladonna," Perry smiled, before the guard led him out of the door. A few seconds later the image changed to that of Atlas, before the call blatantly disconnected.

"Huh. Wonder what he meant by that?" Ruby asked.

"I'm not sure," Blake answered, looking away for a moment, before she turned to the scroll. "Think we can call Menagerie?"

"Oh! So you can call your parents? Sure!" Ruby grinned as she grabbed her scroll again, quickly typing in the number that she'd memorized.

The symbol for Menagerie on the CCT was that of a man with every possible animal part that Ruby had ever known. Ears, antlers, wings, tails, from every possible animal on every possible place it could be. "You know, Blake, I wanted to ask, I see this every time I call Menagerie but have no idea who it is," Ruby said after a moment. Menagerie calls always took ages to connect.

"That's Fauna, the god of the faunus. He's the one that led the original faunus tribes to Menagerie, before they spread out to Solitas and Anima," Blake explained.

"Was he real?"

"Probably not, but it's never a bad thing to know other culture's myths and legends," Blake shrugged. The image disappeared, and was replaced with a single video of a bored girl with freckles on her face.

"Hi, welcome to the Menagerie phone line," she said, obviously bored. "How may I direct your...Blake!? And Ruby!?" she said, her eyes opening wide.

"Ilia!?" Blake answered as she almost leapt up. "When did-"

"Not who I was expecting to see calling today!" the girl grinned. "How've you been? And also, hi Ruby."

Ruby had no idea that her name was Ilia. The last few times she'd made an order to Menagerie it'd been Ilia that had taken her order, and she always got it relatively quickly. Could always be quicker, but then no one had true teleportation.

Ooh, was that a thing she could work out with magic!? Could she work out teleportation!? That would be so cool! But first she had to figure out that darn Change magic thing.

"I've been...alright. How've you?" Blake asked in return.

"Day by day, getting by!" Ilia grinned. "And uh...you're calling together...?" she asked, the grin slowly falling off of her face. Ruby shook her head, and Blake shook hers a moment later. "Oh, good! Well...uh...you obviously called for a reason. Call me again sometime, when you have more time, it'd be great to catch up!"

Blake blushed a bit. "Could you put us through to my parents?" she asked after a moment. Ilia blinked, before she nodded, the smile falling once more.

"Sure thing. And uh...Blake. Make sure you make some time, alright?" Ilia asked after a moment. "I know this is Ruby's scroll you're calling from."

Did Menagerie have a back-trace on her scroll? Was that even a thing!? Ruby had no idea, she was a smith, not a programmer!

"...Alright, Ilia," Blake murmured under her breath, and the girl's face brightened again as the image of Fauna replaced Ilia's image. "I think..."

"I didn't know you had any friends in Menagerie," Ruby interrupted. When Blake almost threatened to get up, Ruby reached up and pulled her back down.

She couldn't wait to see what Kali and Ghira thought of Sundered Crescent!

Passing of Winter

Ruby stared out into the blank vast emptiness that was her shop. The skies were cloudy and gray outside, but there was a certain stillness to everything that made Ruby just get the feeling that something was wrong.

It wasn't that Blake was still upstairs, tucked away in the bed with a minor fever, having gotten sick over the night. Although that certainly was taking more than a few thought processes from Ruby's mind. It wasn't the looks and exchanges from both Perry, Ilia, and even Kali when they'd asked them if they were together. Even Yang and Jaune had given them odd looks when Blake had stayed the night.

All Pyrrha was concerned with was 'did Blake finish her homework', and that almost set off another round of giggling on Ruby's end. The idea of their team leader being so concerned about something so mundane as 'homework' was just especially hilarious for some reason. Maybe when she went to Beacon she'd find it not as funny, but knowing her she absolutely still would. Or if she was leader, and she hoped she wouldn't be but knowing Ozpin he would probably toss her head first to the wolves, she'd do the same thing to her teammates.

But it wasn't even the looks or the exchanges. There was some kind of stillness in the air, something that Ruby knew was wrong but it was impossible to determine what exactly it was.

Things weren't right, somewhere, but Ruby had no idea where. Her scroll was charged, Zwei was fed and walked and currently sleeping next to her on the counter as he usually was. Blake's fever was hopefully breaking soon, and she'd take another small break in a few minutes to go and check again. There was the talk of Beacon's infirmary but Blake preferred somewhere a bit more comfortable, which Ruby wasn't surprised about when the nurse said something about 'poking her aura full of needles' with a major grin on her face.

Also, that made Ruby make a promise to herself to never go into the infirmary in Beacon's premises. Even if she couldn't help it, she should drag herself over to Vale General.

No, there was something though. Her hands headed to her scroll automatically. There was no one around, and Ruby felt the itchiness in her hands that said they wanted to press buttons. But she couldn't go train, she had to take care of Blake. But she still had way too much energy, and before she knew it the scroll was calling General Ironwood.

Probably a bad idea. She had no idea what she was going to say. Talk to Fria, maybe? The video turned on, but instead of the usual holier-than-thou attitude of General Ironwood it was the man who had Fetch. What was his name again...Mallow? No, something like that.

"Oh, uh...hi! General Ironwood's not in yet, and I'm surprised that you have his personal line and not the usual work line..." the faunus said with a sheepish grin.

Ruby nodded. "That's okay, I'm not so sure on why I'm-" she started to say, before Marrow, that was his name!, suddenly ducked out the way. A blast of ice suddenly lanced out from the side, crashing into the window.

"No, that's not what I wanted! I wanted fire, not cold!" Winter's voice shouted from the side. "There is no amount of training to prepare for this!" her voice called out as a lance of lightning suddenly broke open the glass on the other side.

"Winter! At least control yourself! Steel your heart, they run off emotions!" General Ironwood's voice called as Winter ran into the frame, her eyes alight with the Winter Maiden powers.

Ruby blinked for a moment, before the subtext finally started to hit her. Maybe that's what she was feeling earlier. The stillness in the air was the world's way of apologizing to Fria, or crying out that she had passed. It wasn't raining, the world was too cruel for that, but it was sad and dark, and gray. And still. Fria had died, then. Still, Ruby hoped that she'd at least passed painlessly. And that it had been natural causes, and not Salem or something that had gone to Atlas to take her early.

"I'm trying to, General! But there's something that's just plain uncontrolled!" Winter complained as she stared at the holoscreen. "Ruby? What are you doing?" she asked, her eyes alight as she raised an eyebrow.

"Uh...calling, apparently," Ruby answered as she tilted her head.

"How do you turn these things off!?" Winter asked with a kind of begging tone to her, the first time that Ruby had ever heard her even change her tone. "All I've done so far is shoot ice," she muttered.

"Hold on," Ruby said as she struggled to remember the advice that Ms. Goodwitch had given her. "You have to 'feel the connection you have to it' similar to a Semblance, and then try to disconnect it as cutting yourself off from it."

Winter stopped for a moment, before she blinked and the maiden's powers went away. "Oh. Oh that's much better," she muttered after a moment. "Thank you, Ms. Rose."

"Ms. Rose, why are you calling?" General Ironwood's voice rang out as he strolled into the frame. Despite the attitude, Ruby could see bits of ice stuck to his tie and to his shirt, hanging by the frozen water added to it. "Not that I dislike the timing, but it does seem a bit...odd."

Was he seriously blaming her for calling at the perfect time to talk down Winter from using the maiden powers to obliterate...actually in hindsight yeah that would be pretty suspicious. "Ah...had an odd feeling, and my hands just started to automatically call your number to talk to Fria for a moment," Ruby said after a few seconds.

"An odd feeling?" General Ironwood repeated, "I suppose that a maiden would feel another maiden passing, if nothing else."

"Was it natural?" Ruby asked darkly.

Ironwood nodded. "It was. She was feeling much more energetic this morning, which usually meant she was feeling better, but sometimes that just means that it's the end."

"Did...she at least get to watch her show?" Ruby asked, with her brows furrowed. Zwei gave her an odd look and licked her elbow. She reached out with one hand and pet him softly.

"It was painless, if that's what you mean. The only regret she seemed to have is that she didn't have the ability to see what you saw in the powers. She did finish the season, if you were literally asking about that," Ironwood stated softly.

She didn't die with regrets, at least. That was a positive, in Ruby's mind, but her mind seemed to finally hit the fact that she'd never talk with Fria again. While they weren't exactly friends, per se, the fact was that she had known the old woman, had played with her, watched the holovision with her.

And she'd never get to do it again. And that was...well...

Rain fell from the ceiling, as Ruby felt herself tap into the Fall Maiden's powers instinctively. The sky would cry for her, even if she couldn't quite do it. "Are you outside?" General Ironwood asked as the droplets landed near her scroll.

"No," Ruby answered with a sad shake of her head. "This is...the maiden's powers express themselves through emotion. Any emotion. For example, wind for me is satisfaction and frustration-" Ruby started to say, before Ironwood cut her off.

"This is still an open scroll call, Ms. Rose. I highly suggest you stop it there. Although, that does...hm...Clover, if you begin now, how long do you think you can spare Winter for?"

"Sir!?" Winter's voice started, before Ruby watched as some of the other Ace Ops came into the frame, dodging small spikes of ice.

"Probably a week or two. A month if we set it up properly, nothing's too much on the way," Clover's voice answered as the hulking man with a fishing pole for a weapon barely walked up to the desk. He wasn't trying very hard to dodge the ice spikes, and he took a step back as a small piece of ceiling fell down and went right in the way of one of the spikes.

"Alright. Ms. Rose, would you be so kind as to take Winter in for the next few weeks and train with her on the maiden's powers? I'll contact Ozpin and let her know what's going on," General Ironwood said.

Ruby blinked in surprise, but she nodded. She remembered that she'd promised Fria that would help with that too, which was even better as it fed two birds with one scone! Although she never did ever quite the hang of that metaphor. Scones weren't exactly good for birds, now were they...?

"Excellent. Once she gets the ability to turn them off again," General Ironwood said as his tone turned to disappointment and slightly...was that amused frustration in his voice? "Then I'll send her your way. You can decide what to teach her and when, but it's best to keep off the scrolls. The CCT is secure, but only as secure as we can make it."

The line broke up again as there was suddenly more yelling, and Ruby got the distinct opinion that Winter had accidentally hit the projector with one of her ice spikes.

"I bet ice is her frustration, her wind," Ruby muttered to herself.

"Ruby...?" Blake's voice called out sickly from above, and instantly Ruby dropped the scroll and rushed upstairs with her Semblance, the wind guiding her even faster.

In an instant she was next to Blake, the cat faunus having at least woken up and gotten a small glass of water. "So I wasn't dreaming," she muttered as soon as she saw Ruby come up the stairs. "What's all going on?" she asked, her voice light.

"You woke up this morning a bit sick," Ruby explained. "It's only around 11 or so. I already let Pyrrha know you weren't feeling well." Blake nodded, sipping gently on the water.

"Thanks," she answered quietly. "Wasn't expecting to get sick," she said deadpan, "Sorry for putting this on you," she finished. Ruby shot her a look that she hoped Blake was capable of the thought to get it. She didn't need to be worried, Ruby would do the same for any friend of hers. "Where's my book?" she asked.

"Do you think you're capable of reading it right now?" Ruby asked, bursting over to Blake's bag, grabbing her book and bringing it back. She'd always found it hard to read when she was sick, and Dad had always just given her a glass of warm milk to get her to sleep, a game to take her attention off of being sick, and occasionally a motivational poster to replace the blueprints of Crescent Rose that she'd hung up on her wall back on Patch.

"Yeah, I am," Blake muttered as she laid her head back. "Am I...in your bed right now?" she asked, looking down at the bed. Ruby tilted her head. Of course Ruby had put her in Ruby's bed. She'd woken up sick on the couch, which meant that the couch was probably not the best place for her. Thus, the bed! And Ruby did change the sheets first.

She nodded. "Yeah. I made sure to change the sheets first. I'll have to do laundry at some point this week," Ruby shrugged. "Especially because Winter's coming at some point. Fria passed, and Winter's the new Winter Maiden," she summarized.

Blake stared at her for a moment, before she merely started to rub her hand on her head. "I think that may have given me a headache..." she murmured quietly. Ruby had to admit, that probably fit. Maybe she shouldn't just bluntly say something like that in the future...

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Impersonator

Ruby stared over the glass counter. It'd been only a few days since her fateful call with Atlas, and since Blake was over sick. She still wasn't exactly one hundred percent, but she was healthy enough to go back to Beacon, which honestly Ruby probably thought was for the best. As much time as Ruby had, which was rapidly dwindling as more people came in for various commission weapons, she still didn't have nearly as much free time as Yang did. And Yang was, if nothing else, good at getting people healthy.

It always worked for Ruby, at least. A motivational poster, some warm milk, and her favorite video game.

The door chimed again. "Welcome to Summer's Weapon...hi Dad," Ruby chirped as she saw her dad's hair come through the door. In his hand was a small binder. The gradebook from Signal?

"Hey Ruby. Got an interesting call the other day, and wondering if you knew something about it," Dad started, getting up to the counter immediately. He leaned up against it, pulling the binder up.

"Is...this a good call, or a bad call? Wait, Ghira didn't call you did he? I thought he was joking when he mentioned-" Ruby started, flashing back to the jokes that Blake's parents had started to tease them both with.

"What? Why would Ghira call me? The only Ghira I know is Belladonna, and he's over in Menagerie," Taiyang said with a raised eyebrow. "And no, he didn't. No, I mean a call about this," he said, putting the binder on the counter.

Sure enough, it had 'Signal Gradebook Master Copy' written on the front. Ruby partially wondered why he was bringing it up, and partially wondered why he brought it up in the master copy isn't there some kind of safeguards for the thing!? It was the master copy! Anyone could change anything and as long as it was in the master..."Why did you bring this one?" Ruby asked, glancing down at it.

"It's just a copy."

"It's says Master Copy."

Taiyang leaned over, spinning the binder around. "Oh, so it does," he said, blushing a bit. "Well uh...just ignore the master part. I'll return it. I swear."

"Right, Dad."

"No, I wanted to bring this up," he said, opening it up to the middle. The binder was divided up by class, with each of the four years on multiple different pages, depending on the class. Some, like her own math course, had the fourth years in three pages, simply because there were so many assignments. Which made sense to Ruby, it was math.

He flipped to Dust Maintenance, and turned it back around. Ruby blinked. She wasn't even taking dust maintenance, she'd gotten an automatic highest grade simply because she was the weaponsmith of Vale. And worked with dust so much that the teacher knew she'd be able to maintain anything involving dust.

To be honest, she'd actually gotten one of the highest grades possible when she'd made Crescent Rose the first time, and had the teacher look through it. Dust Maintenance, as a course, was all about dust safety and protocols and things like that, and Crescent Rose was a perfect example of how to keep things safe and sane...while also being very deadly to Grimm.

"Here you are," Taiyang said, running his finger down the master attendance list. "This one says that this latest Dust Safety test, the one from four days ago, you got a major fail in," he said, turning the binder around.

Ruby blinked. She wasn't even...she'd passed out of Dust Safety! She glanced down the list, seeing that there was only a single grade in her line on the sheet, unlike everyone else, some of which she knew, which had various grades but mostly towards the upper end of the spectrum.

And sure enough it was a test from four days ago, which said that she'd bombed. Not even a full zero, which was just the teacher messing with her, which had happened before and resulted in a confrontation very similar to this except it was being recorded by Qrow for posterity's sake and to tease Taiyang with later on. But at a five, which meant that she'd tried, failed, and then didn't get any question right.

"That's not right," Ruby answered as a cold sweat ran down her back. "I'm not even taking Dust Safety!"

"Then explain how you took a single test for it?"

"I don't know! Maybe Mr. Verdant messed up!?" Ruby tried to come up with some explanation that would tell them why she had gotten such a low grade on a class that she wasn't even in.

"Would make sense, except I already talked with Riley, and he says it wasn't a mistake. There was a test that came in with your name on it, which means you got an automatic two points, and then you got exactly one question right. Out of fifty."

"But I was here!"

"He says you were in class, too, which was also kind of weird."

"...I was here the entire time. Four days ago, you said? I was probably with Yang and her team at one of the Vale restaurants. That was the day that Blake came down with her cold."

Taiyang stared at her blankly. "Should I be concerned about that?"

"Probably not. She stayed the night because it was too late to get back to Beacon."

"I feel I should be concerned about that."

"I feel like you shouldn't be," Ruby answered back just as easily. Dad gave her a halfhearted glare, but she knew him well enough to know that he didn't mean it. If he'd meant it, then there would be more yelling. After all, she still remembered when Yang had gone to jail for blowing up a nearby club, often called just 'The Club', leaving her on the side of the road next to a dust store. Incidentally, that was the major incident that led her down this path to being a weaponsmith.

"See, that's the weird thing too," Taiyang said after a moment. "Because by all rights, I know you tested out of it. And Mr. Verdant knows that you shouldn't have taken that test, but he graded it anyways."

"Why?"

"Because you were there. I asked a couple of others, and there were a few of your old friends, as much as they were friends at least, who asked when you got back to Patch."

"But I haven't been to Patch for a year and a half now!"

"Exactly. Which is weird enough as it is, but I know you, Rubes. You would've at least said hello if you were. So that reminds me to ask; do you know of anyone who could have impersonated you?"

Ruby blinked, before she thought about it. There weren't that many people good enough with illusions to be her. Multiple people saw her, so it wasn't that Emerald person. Unless it was, but Emerald was, last she heard, still in Vale jail. Or transferred over to Atlas, because her crimes were done on Vytal Festival territory called Amity and Beacon.

There was one other though. "Did uh...my impersonator say anything? Like...at all?" Ruby asked. She'd met Neo all of twice, one time after Neo had stolen Sundered Rose Copy, and then promptly went upstairs and that was where Ruby had caught her eating some leftover chicken and ice cream. Which...according to Torchwick, had given her food poisoning.

Really, Ruby wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Karma after all and all that...although each time that Ruby had met her, the thief had been deadly silent.

"Not that they said. There was waving, but there was no yelling."

"Think it was Neopolitan?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. Although why would Neo care if Ruby bombed a test, let alone a test for a class she'd already gotten out of?

Dad tilted his head. "Neopolitan? That's Torchwick's daughter, right?" he asked.

Ruby shrugged. "I don't know. Closer in age than that so I don't think they're related."

"Huh. Maybe. Although why would she care?" Taiyang asked. "Alright, well...I'll ask Yang to confirm that you were here...actually I'll ask Pyrrha she's less likely to lie to me for fun...and then get rid of this."

"That's why you got the master copy, wasn't it?" Ruby asked with a quiet sigh.

"I have no idea what you're talking about Ruby. Not one idea, whatsoever," Taiyang grinned at her before he reached for his scroll.

He was going to do this in front of her? Ruby sighed. At least there wasn't a customer in the shop, because otherwise this could get uncomfortable, like that one time that someone came in while Taiyang was here and then it just kind of blew out of proportion.

Actually that was how most of her customers that came in really happened, wasn't it? Velvet at least, confused Dad for the owner at first. Even the first guy who was technically before her but Ruby still didn't know his name even after he opened a freaking weapons shop to try to compete with her thought Dad was the original owner.

Most people by then had learned that it was Ruby, not Taiyang, that was owning the shop, weird as it was to have a fifteen year old shopkeep. Admittedly, she was sixteen now, and soon she'd be seventeen. Hard to believe that she was almost at Beacon age.

"Ruby was with you, then? You sure it was her and not some strange illusionist?" Taiyang asked on his scroll, right in front of her. Ruby could vaguely see the picture of Pyrrha on the screen. "Okay. So not an illusionist then. Alright, just wanted to make sure before I try and ground her for heading back to Patch."

Pyrrha's voice said something that she couldn't pick up. Ruby groaned, before she remembered that faunus usually had better hearing than humans did. At least, Blake did. Ruby wasn't certain about Sun or Neon or Lilac, but still she focused on the Change aspect of the Fall Maiden's powers.

The tail was annoying, yet again, but she was getting close to getting the full transformation down. And this time it didn't feel nearly as embarrassing as it did before! Always a win. "Yeah, a bunch of people saw Ruby on Patch and asked me when she was allowed back."

"I thought she was allowed back at anytime," Pyrrha's voice said, obviously confused.

"She is but she came back to take a dust studies test, which is odd in and of itself. And then she bombed it, so badly it reminds me of an explosive grenade. One question right, all of the others blatantly or just barely wrong, wrong enough to not get points but not wrong enough to not show she wasn't trying."

"So this imposter, whoever it was, was capable of sounding and looking exactly like Ruby?"

"Not sure on sound. She didn't make a sound at all, and I didn't see her at all on Patch."

"Very odd. I can confirm though that Ruby was with us at the same time. So it wasn't her, at least."

"Good to know. Thanks Pyrrha. Yang giving you any trouble?" Dad asked, and Ruby hid a smirk.

"Define trouble?"

"Uh...that doesn't sound good," Dad commented. Ruby nodded, and she jumped over the counter to make sure that he knew that. He blinked for a moment. "Hold on, hey, Ruby, when were you going to tell me that you were a faunus? I saw you when you were born and you didn't have those."

"Just another section of the maiden's magic I'm working on," Ruby answered.

Dad blinked for a moment. "Huh. Okay, that's a thing. Hey Pyrrha, if Yang gives you any more trouble than necessary just give me a call, okay? I know how to make her listen and it's not to take away Bumblebee. She'll take that one out anyways, and it's better to aim for other things she likes to take care of."

"I've already learned that it's best to limit her shower time and shampoo," Pyrrha's voice said. "And it sounds like you just discovered Ruby's switching trick. I'll leave you two to it. Tell her hello from me!" Pyrrha's voice said, after the line hung up.

Taiyang glanced down to make sure it was off. "Alright lady, it's time you and I have a little talk about 'how not to give your old man a heart attack'," he grinned. Ruby grinned back. This was going to be a fun conversation.

Winter Arrives

Weiss Schnee stood tall, exactly as her father had taught her, as the Atlesian Manta ship started to land. Next to her was the rest of her team, the Team Silver, with Ozpin next to her.

She was chosen for the absolute most highest honor she could be. A mission to escort the most personable of all VIP's, her own sister, around and through Vale.

She'd gotten the call late two nights ago, and in turn she'd gotten her team up, which Nora hadn't been happy about, and drilled them to treat her sister with the same respect they would give to Professor Ozpin.

Weiss would have said herself, but she knew her team better than that. If she'd said that, then Nora would've shown up with a plate full of pancakes and Cyril would've had his face drawn all over with crayon. It was, unfortunately, common enough.

"You know, Ms. Schnee, when I suggested that you take up this request I was not expecting for your entire team to be here, just yourself. I expected that Winter would be most appreciative if the first sight she saw here was a one she knew well," Ozpin said.

Weiss froze. "I...I'm sorry Professor, but when I saw that it was my sister, whom I haven't seen since the Incursion-"

Ozpin nodded. "There's no need for apologies, Ms. Schnee. Just that Ms. Schnee may not be the most talkative of people with other people around, Ms. Schnee."

Weiss gave him a halfhearted glare, before she turned back to the Manta, her head held high. Myrtenaster at her hip, exactly as it should've been. The ramp dropped, and unlike many of the other Atlas ships that had come and gone, this one had no contingent of soldiers coming out of it to secure the landing zone. Instead, it was just one.

She looked towards Ozpin and Weiss, and Weiss' gaze met hers. There was no running, not from Winter, nor was there anything more than hurried walk. "Professor Ozpin. General Ironwood wishes to thank you for letting me use your flying grounds for my landing," Winter said unceremoniously. Her head turned a bit. "And for letting me see my sister while I'm here."

"Let General Ironwood, and yourself, know that I am here for any assistance. Atlas' assistance was Vytal during the Incursion," Ozpin said. Weiss sent another confused look his way, but he stood with his back tall, as if he hadn't even realized the extra emphasis on the word 'vital'. Winter didn't seem to have gotten it either, and for a moment Weiss had thought she'd overthought things, before Nora started snickering to the side.

A quick elbow by Cyril, which meant that was at least one 'thanks for shutting up Nora now I don't need to yell at you' card for him, before she went silent.

"Of course, Professor. Now then, I should head down as soon as I can, and alert General Ironwood to my arrival," Winter said, her head held high. Weiss nodded her acceptance of that. Winter was her sister, but more importantly she was also an Atlas Specialist. And she was on a mission at the moment, although what kind of mission would bring her to Vale Weiss wasn't to know. And Winter was nothing if not professional about it.

"Shall we?" Weiss asked, and as soon as Winter nodded, the younger Schnee turned to her team. "Nora, Ren, in front. Cyril to the side, I will be in the rear."

Nora started snickering, before this time Ren got to her, which earned him an 'extra meditation time' card that she would have to do something to make up one of these days.

Weiss had found that after the days of the Vytal Festival Tournament, things had...changed in her team. No longer was Nora going to just sit still and do what she was told. No longer was Ren going to sit silently and be the calm that Weiss had needed him to be. Cyril was going to be a pain in the butt, which honestly hadn't really changed much.

They'd seen her break down in the arena, and knew that if she couldn't keep her cool, then they didn't need to either. Ren was still the calming one, but now he was laced with a bit more vitriol, a bit more sarcasm. Cyril hadn't changed.

The biggest change was Nora. Weiss had always assumed that Ren would be the leader after her, because both Nora and Cyril would be content to be followers. That wasn't the case. Nora was challenging her patience and her leadership day by day, hour by hour, because she'd found out that Weiss had valued 'strength' above leadership ability.

It was small things, at first. Snickering where she wasn't supposed to, for example. The big things only happened when Nora was still on her own, such as during combat class. Then she'd raise Magnhild above her head and shout how she was powerhouse behind Team Silver. Granted, she'd won to almost everyone except Team Peabody, minus Jaune, but Weiss assumed that was just because of the name. Anyone that had a team name like Peabody had something to prove.

And now her team was in shambles, in front of the one person that she really, really didn't want to show off how badly her leadership was.

She was a Schnee! She'd been taught leadership skills more than anyone else, but having to put them into practice was...not her strong suit. And she didn't want Winter to know or to realize that, at all.

"Weiss," Winter's voice said after a moment. "I assume you have a Bullhead reserved?" she asked.

Weiss did, in fact, have that Bullhead reserved, but the only one available was on the other side of the airfield, which meant a fair walk away anyways. "Of course she does! Ren had to remind her to do it this morning, but she did!" Nora grinned at her from the front.

He hadn't. Weiss had written it down and gotten an alert that morning just in case she'd forgotten to do it sooner, although it was unnecessary. Ren didn't say anything to Nora's challenge.

"Good for her. It's good to have teammates that can remind you when things can go wrong," Winter said after a moment. Weiss froze for a moment, her head stuck on that stalled second.

"Of course it is! We wouldn't be Team Silver if Weiss didn't listen to us!" Nora chanted. "Team Sil-Ver! Team Sil-Ver!"

"Nora," Ren reminded gently. Weiss put another check mark in her mental 'extra meditation time' card pile. The calm boy looked over her sister with an appraising look, his eyes stopping towards her sabers. "Those are new," he commented.

Weiss nodded. "Yes. They're of excellent craftsmanship," she said, reminded of what happened during the Incursion. Winter was one of the ones who had fought Cinder directly, and in turn her weapons had been cut in half. Literally, in half. They'd been melted through. Weiss had seen the slag. "Some of Ruby Rose's, incidentally," Winter explained, bringing them out to glint in the sunlight. There was something else to them that Weiss couldn't quite identify, a chill to them that seemed to break into her mind, wriggle around and make things unbearable. A constant ominous wind that blew through the courtyard. Weiss could almost feel it circle around them.

"She does do good work," Cyril said, his hands on the back of his head. "Hey Weiss, what airfield was it?"

"Two B," Weiss reminded, as Cyril pointed out the Bullhead was still idling at the prompted airfield. "Takeoff time was twenty minutes after Winter's landing, so we have a few minutes," Weiss explained.

"That she does," Winter agreed. "And...how are you doing, Weiss?" she asked after a moment. She looked lost into the distance, as if thinking of something much different than Weiss would think of.

"I am doing quite well," Weiss answered easily, well practiced on this particular speech. "My grades are quite easily the highest in class, and my team is considered second only to Pyrrha Nikos' team, and even then we are on par with Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long."

The team wasn't. She was, though, with her glyphs easily throwing the majority of combatants far away from her. And her studying habits were second to none. But there was more to Beacon than just study and combat. "And what do you wish to do after Beacon?" Winter asks after a moment. "That applies to all of you, incidentally. Since you're here."

"Newscaster," Cyril grinned instantly. "I'm still an intern during the breaks for the VNN, and occasionally they have me doing the weather when Cumulus is out."

Winter nodded, and that was about as much attention as Weiss would hope that would go to Cyril. He was an attention grabber, and if nothing else his dream of being a newscaster, already weird in and of itself, was useful as he was almost always up to date on everything. Not always accurate, but that's because situations develop oftentimes in real time.

Ren and Nora looked at each other for a moment, their eyes sharing their conversation. Weiss knew that they did that a lot, oftentimes remaining silent while doing it, and then Nora will say something completely off the wall and Ren would either correct or agree.

It was a well-played pattern that suggested they knew each other well. "We're going to Mistral, and then play kill-a-Grimm!" Nora grinned violently. Ren simply nodded.

They were going to Beacon to become Huntresses and Huntsman for the sole purpose of playing a game? Weiss took a deep breath. Her team was probably the weirdest one in Beacon. Even Team Cardinal or Team Peabody couldn't be nearly as weird as her team.

Winter merely nodded her acceptance. "An admirable goal," she said quietly. "There are a lot of villages in Mistral that could use the assistance."

Had she been missing something there? Winter wasn't wrong, so therefore it must be Weiss that was wrong, but Nora had specifically used the wording 'play'. That meant a game. Why had she used that specific wording? Unless they were gunning after a specific type of Grimm. At which point, she'd probably get to know them better if she took a job or mission that went out there at some point.

But Mistral was almost always the locality of Haven. It would be considered rare and improper for Beacon undergraduates to head through Mistralian territory. She'd have to think on how to do that later.

"And you, Weiss?" Winter asked as the Bullhead started to pull up. Weiss instinctively grabbed at a pole to stabilize herself, before she realized that Winter hadn't, so she let go. Hopefully before Winter realized.

"I'm not sure yet," Weiss answered honestly. She knew where she would most likely end up. She was the heiress for the SDC after all. And Father had been teaching her about business tactics used by the SDC for ages and years before, and he would probably teach her more after she graduated. This was...one thing at least, that she could call her own. One thing more to connect her with her grandfather.

"You'll just end up the SDC. We already know that part," Cyril said. "You always mention how you're the heiress, and I have looked up how inheritance laws work."

"The SDC is a special case," Winter interrupted. "The inheritance laws around the SDC are only finalized because our grandfather, Nicholas Schnee, specifically mentioned grandchildren, not in-laws."

Weiss nodded. It was added in shortly before Nicholas went onto permanent bedrest, she knew. He'd been pushing hard for that particular law. A company could be considered a trust asset, and then pushed through to be 'In Care Of' until certain heiresses or heirs were of full adult status.

Of course, in Atlas 'Full Adult Status' was not given until one term of military training or being a graduated Hunter. There were many people that wanted that law changed or gone, but General Ironwood had so far remained unmoved. The Bullhead flight down to Vale was swift, and this time Weiss took the lead as they went to the VIP's specified drop-off point.

The dust shop. Weapons shop, if she had to be honest, but all she'd ever have any need of it for was for the dust. And to be fair to Ruby, she actually did have a good selection of dust.

But Weiss was the Schnee heiress. Not many reasons for her of all people to go down to a dust shop.

There was a light show going on inside when Weiss pushed open the door. Team Peabody was already here, based on how Yang Xiao Long was sitting by the counter, and Jaune Arc was reading through a comic book.

And Blake Belladonna was currently in the arena with an unknown wolf faunus that Weiss had never seen before. She paused to watch as the wolf faunus...who had two traits, which was already unique...dressed in red and brown went to town on Blake's weapon with a large scythe.

"Is that Ruby?" Cyril asked after a moment.

"Woah nelly! Look at her go!" Nora's eyes were wide with excitement as the scythe suddenly bloomed a blade made of fire and swiped down onto Blake's frame. She disappeared in a blur, another usage of Blake's Semblance, only to appear behind the...now wolf faunus Ruby.

That was weird.

"Very odd," Winter agreed.

"Oh hey! Ruby! Winter's here! Stop the match," Xiao Long called out, just as Ruby tried to smash Belladonna with the blunt end of the hammer side, only for a large wave to come out.

A wave of water.

"Where did that come from?" Weiss blinked as Winter took a deep breath. The arena walls went down, and both Ruby and Blake were breathing hard.

Water was still draining from the arena floor. How had there been a wave of water.

"I get the feeling I'm not going to enjoy this..." Winter murmured under her breath.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Magic Battle

"Alright, so first thing's first, the same way I was taught," Ruby started. It'd been the end of the day, and after only a few minor accidents where Winter had caved into expressing the Winter Maiden's powers. Honestly, she was a lot better than Ruby was at first. Ruby couldn't have gone five minutes without activating them on accident, but whether that was because she had only half of the power or if because she was just that bad at dealing with them, she didn't know.

"I thought you said you were taught by experience," Winter said, her Atlas Specialist uniform untouched by the accidents of the day. "And please, can you...not flaunt being able to turn faunus and back at will?" Winter asked after a long moment. "I didn't think you could do that. Fria certainly couldn't."

"Fria never tried," Ruby corrected, her wolf ears and tail staying out. "And no, I won't. I am still trying to perfect the transformation magic so I'm hoping the longer I stay like this then maybe it'll make itself be a bit easier!"

"...That's not going to happen to me, is it?"

"It's quite likely!" Ruby grinned. "So then, first things first, we activate the powers," she said, falling within the usual purview of the Fall Maiden. As soon as Winter's eyes lit up, the flames blue and cold as ice, Ruby put up the arena walls.

She'd also included a target, if only so they could know what the powers did. Because magic sometimes didn't mean much if no one could see it being done. And she'd made sure to close the blinds too, so no one could see inside unless they pulled a Neo and Torchwick.

Although Neo was on Patch. For some reason.

"Alright," Winter started, before a slight wind came emanating from her body. "What...what's going on?" she asked. Ruby could see her legs tighten as her confusion reigned a bit, and the wind became more.

"The Maiden's powers are based on emotion, at first!" Ruby had to yell to be heard throughout the blustering gusts that was the wind nearby. "And that means that probably confusion is your wind!"

"I know that! Now how do I turn it off!"

Stop feeling confused? Ruby thought that was actually a pretty easy one, but now that she thought about it was very similar to her own troubles with the wind at first. Satisfaction and frustration was her wind, and trying to not be frustrated at failing with the wind only made it worse.

It was a spiral. One that she'd gotten used to, she hoped.

"Turn off the maiden's power then!" Ruby shouted as she felt herself start to be pushed back the abrupt tornado. That was another easy way, simply turn it off and turn it back on. As long as she wasn't feeling the same emotion right away, then it wouldn't come around to bite her!

Although really, the maiden's powers weren't like a scroll that wasn't working. They were more like...a dog. There was no turning a dog off and on again. But there was continuous efforts to work with them, live with them, train with them, and they would eventually learn the best things to do.

Which was why Zwei was currently upstairs, hopefully happily sleeping the massive storm going on downstairs away. "I can't turn them off!" Winter shouted after a long moment. "You told me how, and it correlates to what Fria told me but it isn't working!"

"Got more than I did," Ruby commented under her breath. Her own experience with Amber had eventually just been boiled down to, 'So go and light the world on fire!'

Amber liked fire. Cinder had liked fire. Ruby used fire a lot.

Did that mean the Winter Maiden was really good at controlling ice and water? Or was it just cold? Because Ruby's fire wasn't actual fire, not really, it was closer to just heat that happened to be looking like fire. Fria's cold had been just pure cold, which is why when forging Winter's sabers Ruby had been so distracted.

Ruby's own wind started, and she proved her mastery over the element by quickly swirling it in the opposite direction of Winter, slowing everything down. As much wind as Winter could output, Ruby could simply do much more.

It was Ruby's main element for a reason.

Fire was secondary. Lightning was third, and that was a fun one because it wasn't actually an emotion but rather a specific word, so it was like she was launching words at opponents that happened to be lightning bolts, it was really cool...

Winter took a deep breath as Ruby took control over the wind, forcing herself to the current moment. Ruby eventually turned down the wind to match Winter's output, eventually settling to nothing. "Alright. Confusion's wind. That's always a good start. What was the first one that came to you?" Ruby asked.

"Cold," Winter answered instantly. "Shards of ice that came and attacked-" she said, before Ruby burst into her Semblance as large conical icicles came out of in front of Winter.

A moment later the wolf faunus landed in front of her. "Okay, so 'attack' is probably your cold. Odd, mine was weapon and with lightning of all things," Ruby commented. "The only real shortcut I've figured out is to keep doing it and figure out what all the patterns are. There's five that I know of; lightning, ice, wind, fire, and water. I think earth is in there somewhere but I haven't used it yet for me either."

"Earth? Isn't that dangerous to be using it in a weapons shop?" Winter asked.

"Isn't fire!?" Ruby retorted. "Fire's a lot more dangerous than earth. At least with earth it's just a minor or major earthquake, with fire you can have dust that goes off and then the entire shop goes boom!"

"...Why are we practicing in your dust shop."

"Good question," Ruby admitted a moment later. "Because the only other place is Beacon and I really don't think Ozpin would like it if word got out that there were two people with similar like Semblances that all developed later on in life."

Winter blinked at her. "That's what Ozpin actually went with? I thought he just called it your original Semblance."

"Nah, too many people saw me use Petal Burst," Ruby shrugged. "So we had to improvise. He's not actually all that good at improvising, but did you know he could control time!? That's a thing that we can do!?"

"...What?"

"Yeah! There's a lot more to these powers than just pure elemental control like the whole faunus change thing I'm working on, and Ozpin promised me that once I get it down I get to start on time!"

"You seem way too happy for being able to flaunt the laws of physics," Winter deadpanned.

"Eh, I work with them enough I figured they deserve a break," Ruby grinned. "Now then, these hardlight walls are made to withstand everything that I can dish out. And if they can withstand me, they can probably withstand you." Winter nodded. "And that's why we're going to spar, without actually moving!" Ruby grinned.

Winter blinked. "That seems like running when I can't crawl."

"Doesn't it though? Well, okay, you can move, but I can't. How's that, a bit fairer?" Ruby grinned. Winter shook her head. "Oh come on, it'll be fun! Win or lose, doesn't matter!"

She sighed. "This seems like a bad idea. I don't even know how to control the other ones."

"Exactly! What faster way of figuring them out than with live experiments!" Ruby grinned, before she turned on the Fall Maiden's powers. Winter took another deep breath, before the blue fire appeared at her eyes.

Winter tore to the side as she started abruptly, pulling out absolutely nothing. Ruby nodded, that sounded about right. New maiden, probably couldn't use anything more than 'this looks cool'. "Come on, just attack with anything and everything!" Ruby grinned as she started a small tornado with lightning coming out of it. Winter's eyes widened as she ducked to the left, forcing ice shards towards her.

Ruby blocked them easily with a wall of wind, sending it flying ahead towards her. With an expression of fire, she formed into an axe made of fire, sending it flying towards Winter as if she'd thrown it.

"Why are you throwing a lava axe!?" Winter shouted as fire jumped up in front of her, making her duck as the wall of fire blocked her view of the axe. The wall of fire hadn't been Ruby's, so it must have been Winter's.

"Because I'm trying new things too!" Ruby grinned. "Also, I think either scared or surprise is fire!"

"I had a lava axe thrown at my head, what do you think!?" Winter asked as a wave of fire washed towards Ruby. With barely blinking an eye she created a small mist of water to catch it and turn to steam.

The steam was then blown back towards Winter. "Yeah, I think it's being scared. Don't watch horror movies. Unless you want to watch horror movies. I haven't seen many good ones, have you?" Ruby asked.

The wall of steam brushed past Winter's defenses, and Ruby could see Winter's aura starting its work as a defense. "I have seen many," Winter admitted after a moment. A large icicle was formed at her feet, and Winter easily carved it and sent it flying to Ruby. Manipulating the ice directly was a much faster way than Ruby could think of, but she'd have to find someway to actually feel the ice. Instead she simply created a wall of fire and wind to separate the two, and it landed as a useless pile of water behind her.

Which Ruby then turned into ice of her own before sending the droplets as little ice pellets.

"Really? You don't seem like that much of a horror movie buff."

"It was mostly for Clover's sake. You remember him, the one with-"

"The fishing pole! Yeah, Qrow liked him a lot. Something about being able to play actual cards with the guy and be able to work on his actual bluffing skills."

"Don't tell your Uncle Qrow, but Clover liked him too. He was usually way too lucky for his own good," Winter admitted.

Lightning struck towards Ruby's shoes, and Ruby grinned as tried something she hadn't done before. She wasn't supposed to move. And if frustration and satisfaction was wind, then earth had to be its near opposite.

Steadfastness and the feeling of standing her ground, to not give it up. To not give up. Determination.

A large rock came through the arena floor, and immediately a large error sounded throughout the arena. "Oh, right," Ruby muttered as the clash of the elements stopped. "Well, uh...I found earth!" she said.

Winter stood there, her usual uniform a bit damp with sweat and water, and more than a few scorch marks. There were a few cuts from where Ruby had got her with sharpened wind. "And that was worth breaking the flow of the spar?" she asked, her voice low and growling.

"The arena was made for a single floor. It wasn't expecting to have rocks shoved up through the floor, okay?" the wolf faunus argued, before she shoved the rock back down into the ground. "Maybe we should head to Beacon at some point. Oh, I know! I can teach you to fly!"

"That seems like both a wonderful idea and a terrible one," Winter admitted a moment later. "So far the only thing you've taught me is that you can't teach me anything."

"To be fair, it's also only been a few hours," Ruby admitted. "Alright, so the secret I've found to flying is swirling wind underneath you, which is why the key is knowing what makes wind go for you!"

"I don't think confusion will work here."

"Nah, it'll work fine!" Ruby said, shaking off everything that Winter was saying as she jumped into the air, a small circle of wind appearing underneath her.

Which immediately toppled over to the right and sent Ruby straight into one of the weapon racks, because the arena hardlight walls had errored out.

Talking at Night

Ruby stared up at the ceiling of her apartment again. It was odd, with Winter on the couch, having pulled up a small amount of blankets to act as her 'bed'.

One thing spoke in her favor though, and that was how much Zwei trusted her. He'd even let her pet his belly, something that Ruby had to give treats to do! Sometimes, when he was in a particularly unforgiving mood. It was rare that it lasted for long, but when it was there, then wow Ruby had to watch out!

But it was odd with Winter there, when it wasn't odd with Blake or some of the others. Yang it was fine, if only because they were already used to each other.

And Ruby knew the cardinal rules of sleeping under the same roof as Yang by heart. One, get to the shower forty minutes before Yang wakes up. Two, don't touch her shampoo. Three, if trying to go somewhere, make sure to wake Yang up at least an hour before the time. Blake had no such troublesome rules, and most of the time just read on her couch. Sometimes she was reading some of Ruby's books, some of Ruby's hidden books, and other times doing actual legitimate homework. And her presence was a soft presence, if that made sense.

Winter was...different. Winter was uncomfortable. There was a distinctive something about it that made Ruby uncomfortable, although she trusted Winter. It was an odd feeling, and not one that she particularly enjoyed. She was still in a relative Specialist uniform, a simple white shirt and long white sweatpants that really showed off the Atlas colors. Gray and white.

Ruby was still in the partial wolf transformation that she'd at least gotten to the point where she'd mastered that part. It was weird trying to sleep with the tail and ears a bit, but it certainly made Zwei less eager to take the entirety of her bed. Now he was only taking three quarters.

"Ruby," Winter asked suddenly, her eyes wide open and almost glowing in the darkness. They'd gone to bed...relatively...early that night. All Ruby had needed to do was tally up the day's earnings and check inventory on anything that needed it. Even then, it'd only taken about half an hour. Ruby had gotten it down to a system.

"Yeah?" Ruby answered back. She pushed herself off the bed, looking over towards the Specialist.

"What is it like?"

"What's what like?"

"Being a faunus, changing at will."

"Oh," Ruby blinked for a moment. How to describe it? It wasn't exactly the easiest change, and the only one she'd gotten to work so far was the wolf one, and only because she'd been pushing so hard to make it work.

If Qrow could become a crow then she could become a wolf darn it!

"It's...not much different, in my mind," Ruby shrugged. "I mean, yeah, hearing's better, and with the tail I have a better sense of balance than by all rights I should. I asked Lilac and Blake, and that sounds about right they said. Blake's hearing is still better than mine, but admittedly she's also, you know, not a maiden. Lilac's hearing is the same as the rest of us, but her balance is superb, or so she says. I believe it."

"And...anything else?"

"Better eyesight in general. I'm not sure if the silver eyes thing interferes with it or not, but I can see in the dark pretty well like this. Can't see colors as well though, but then everything just flashes silver for a second, and then everything's in perfect clarity."

"Silver eyes?" Winter asked. Ruby heard her shuffling around, and saw her start to sit up a bit. She looked uncomfortable laying on the couch, as if she'd never done anything like it before. It's not like Ruby had a second bed...

"Oh, weird. Must be an Ozpin thing. He told me a bit, but basically people with silver eyes are really good at fighting the Grimm for...some reason or another. He says magic, I don't, it's a whole thing."

"Odd. But you get the night vision from being a faunus, but you're also colorblind? Does that apply to any others?" Winter asked. There was a light tone to it, as if she was asking a question that she'd already asked.

Ruby shrugged. "I know Blake and Lilac can see just fine. I haven't asked Marrow and he's the only other dog or canine faunus that I know. I know Zwei can't see colors, but he can definitely differentiate between shades of gray. How else would he know how to read a red and green clock..."

"Is that why that clock's such weird colors?"

"Yeah, it's one of Zwei's food clocks. I keep it around so he learns that a certain time means feeding time, and to bite the hand of whoever is here when it goes off, but not what time it says."

"Why?"

"To prank Yang," Ruby grinned instantly. "That way I can have it go off at four in the morning when Yang's watching over Zwei and he'll be all 'grr its feeding time not sleeping time' and then Yang will have to get up to feed him only to realize it's actually four in the morning. It'll be hilarious!"

"You...often go through such lengths for your pranks?" Winter asked. Ruby could see the tilt of her head, hear the confusion eminent in her voice.

"Only when I need to," Ruby shrugged. "Otherwise we're pretty chill most of the time. One time Yang changed Crescent Rose's whetstone to be a bar of soap on me and made it look like the whetstone. That was a fun one, I made comments about how I was 'cleaning' up Patch."

"Sounds more like it went wrong for her."

"No, it went wrong for everyone else in Signal. Yang and Dad found it great," Ruby grinned. "In all seriousness though, why do you want to know?"

"It's rare to find a person that has experience with both sides of the issues."

"I don't," Ruby admitted instantly. "I haven't experienced any of the problems. Only the biological differences. The cultural ones are way beyond me."

"Oh."

Ruby's mind rang out with a name. According to Blake, at least, she did know of a faunus who had experience with both sides of the cultural things. "You might want to try talking to Ilia or Menagerie though. According to Blake she used to pose as a human in Atlas."

"Ilia..." Winter said softly. "I'll have to remember the name. Thank you for letting me know."

"She's pretty hostile to most humans though, although apparently I've won her over on account of not being Blake's girlfriend, and for trying to show people a better way. Not sure how, but that's okay."

Winter gave a quiet hum of acknowledgement, before she laid back down. "Have you found, Ruby, that these powers...change you?" Winter asked after a moment.

"Well, physically yeah," Ruby said. She wasn't quite sure what Winter was getting at. "I mean, I didn't used to be a two trait faunus. although really, I can turn that off," she murmured, as she activated the maiden's power and switched back. She'd gotten quick at doing it too, only a few seconds this time.

Blake had asked where the ears and tail go, and to that all that Ruby has to say is 'magic!'. It didn't make sense, by any stretch of the imagination. But if magic can break the rules and laws of physics, then why couldn't it do things that were blatantly impossible? Not to mention that now she'd have to add earth to her powerset. She'd gotten good with the other five, but earth was a bit different. And considering she had just now gotten a hold of which emotion it was, it made sense.

Most of the times her determination had been primary, there was always some other emotion kind of staggering it. Sadness and anger, rage and pain during the fight with Cinder. Frustration at Fria and herself when trying to forge Winter's sabers and Sundered Crescent.

"I mean do they change you mentally. The changing of your emotions can't be healthy."

Oh, that's what she meant...

"Not really," Ruby shrugged. "You learn quick enough that at least in my experience to find the element without the emotion control. The emotions just help you find them, and help you control them at first, but they're just that, kind of a crutch. Ditch the crutch soon enough, and you'll be able to fly without issues."

"I think I'd like to keep my feet on something solid."

"Aren't you from a floating city?"

"The ground underneath Atlas is still solid, Ruby."

"Tomato, potato," Ruby said with a mild smirk as Winter gave a sigh. That was the same sigh that Yang gave whenever Ruby said something similar. She should invite Yang over sometime, see if they could drive Winter to using the maiden's powers. And invite her sister, Weiss, too! At the same time, make it a party!

Although really, if it was a party then Ruby didn't really want any part of it. She'd had enough of parties during the Vytal Festival Dance. And that was when she'd blown up half of the top floor of the CCT!

Admittedly, those dragon fireworks had been awesome. And anyone who disagreed probably hadn't seen actual fireworks. Just small firecrackers pretending to be fireworks.

Ruby laid back down on her bed, ignoring the small light of the clock. Zwei had once again started to claim the entire bed, but Ruby didn't want to change again for the sole purpose of getting a quarter of the bed. Then Zwei would just get used to it, and then her hidden talent wouldn't be a talent anymore, it'd just be hidden!

"What do you think I'm doing wrong?" Ruby asked after a second. "Considering, you know, other maiden and all."

"With what?" Winter asked, only slightly tired. They were supposed to be sleeping but Ruby was finding it hard to sleep right now. If it wasn't two in the morning, she'd have already gotten up and started either coffee, cookies, or working on the shop.

Or working on a few commissions that she really should have completed by now. Admittedly, most of them were waiting on things back from the seller. Sometimes they told her what she actually wanted to know, but most of the time it was 'you're the weaponsmith, you figure it out'. She was also really good at figuring it out.

"Turning into a wolf."

"I've been the winter maiden for only a few days. You've been the fall maiden for months now. What makes you think I'd know when you wouldn't?"

"Because you have the outside perspective," Ruby answered honestly. "You have so little knowledge, that it's impossible for you to not have any preconceptions. It's like building a weapon, sometimes you have to discard all knowledge on what you can't do to figure out how you can."

"I wouldn't begin to know. Have you asked Ozpin?"

"All he said was something like, 'you have to know the animal to turn into them'. So I've been studying their physiology and all that and I think I've got it down, which is how I got the tail too but then I can't go any further than that."

"Ask that drunk uncle of yours?"

"That's a good idea! I'll ask Uncle Qrow to come around, he's sure to have a bit more assistance now!" Ruby said, grabbing at her scroll and immediately starting to message her uncle.

"That was sarcasm, Ruby, don't actually do it."

"Too late, message sent! He'll probably be here in a day or two, depending on where he is when he gets the message."

Winter groaned again, doing her best to try to keep it inside. Ruby tried to hide her grin. Qrow and Winter have made no attempt at hiding how much they didn't like each other, which meant the next few days were going to be fun.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Fly Training

The Bullhead landed easily on Beacon grounds. It was a weekend, so Ruby hoped that meant that most people wouldn't be around. Especially if she was going to be doing the thing that both bothered her the most and was also one of the coolest things ever.

She was going to show Winter how to fly.

Granted, it was also training for herself too because she wasn't all that good at it either. She could float up, float to the right, float to the left, and then stop. She could not go forward or go backward without falling down.

Winter was trailing behind her, her head held high as she was once again on normal ground. And not locked somewhere in Ruby's shop, attempting to stay in her lab and practice.

She'd been there only for two days, and already Ruby could tell she was sick of it. Ruby didn't blame her, not really, because as entertaining as the shop was, it was only entertaining if they were actually on the outside. Winter was very much locked away in the back.

"And there's a hidden place here?" Winter asked, her eyebrows raised up a bit.

Ruby nodded. "Yep! I got Ozpin to agree to take us down, and he'll show us a bit more on what it takes. You did get wind without the emotion, right? Confusion?" Ruby wasn't worried, as long as she'd got it-

"...For the most part."

Never mind, Ruby was worried again.

Well, whatever happened, it would all work out. Ruby led her towards Ozpin's tower, now that the windows had been replaced and the tower not in broken condition. One of her first feats as the half maiden was blowing it up on complete accident. That was how she'd found out that for her, surprise was fire!

Not much could be less surprising than suddenly conjuring fire and then never stopping conjuring fire.

She was lucky that she was, somehow, immune to her own fire. Or at least it wasn't as hot to her as it was to everyone else, probably as a side effect of magic not wanting to hurt them. If magic could want, that was. She still didn't quite understand how that worked, or why she could picture change magic as a different kind of magic to the elemental version, or why it worked to begin with, but that was okay.

The tower of Oz felt the same as it always did, and Ruby glanced down at the keypad as she and Winter stepped on the elevator. "There was some combination..." she muttered, staring at few buttons. There weren't many. 'Open Door', 'Close Door', 'Tower', and 'Ground'. Why Ozpin felt like he needed an elevator with only four buttons, Ruby didn't know.

"I think he's expecting us at the tower," Winter said softly from behind her.

"Nah, this'll be so much funnier," Ruby said as she called upon the wind, trying to feel out everything in the wall. Nothing was truly air tight, it always had some amount of air, and thus she could move it.

It was like trying to practice a sense that she didn't realize existed only a few months ago. Or she had been blind and only just recently regained her vision. Or in the words that Pyrrha would note; trying to use her Semblance so rarely that it had given her no chance to actually practice how to use it.

Ruby concentrated hard on trying to find the airflow in the wall, before she found it, just barely. A small minor wind current generated where there was nothing, and with a grin she used it to try and hit the button.

That took a few moments on its own for her to be able to hit a solid button with it when she couldn't see the button.

Eventually the elevator started moving downwards, and Winter glanced at her impressed. "That's quite something. How did you do that?" she asked, fully intent on trying to get something out of this horrendous exercise.

Ruby nodded. "So basically, it's like a sense you don't know that's there. Like opening your eyes after a good solid sleep. There's always wind and air everywhere, and I knew that Ozpin put the button there."

The elevator continued to go down. "Quite impressive, the control you have over the air and wind."

"It's the first element that came to me. I have a running theory that the first one you discover is the one you're best at. I have no doubt that Cinder's was fire."

Winter's eyes darkened a bit. "Must have been," she said through gritted teeth, obviously locked in the bad memories of losing her original weapons to the...madwoman? What was Cinder, anyways? Agent of Salem? That was a good way of putting it, Ruby guessed. The elevator opened to the strange underground area that was beneath Beacon. There was no one around, although Ruby swore that she heard a small 'caw' of surprise.

Off in the distance she saw the aura transference machine, without any body in there where Amber's body had been. Right around the corner from it was a strangely designed door, sealed shut. "Yeah, perfect place!"

"These rocks are sharp and I'm pretty sure there's stalactites and stalagmites everywhere. You're more likely to be impaled than to get any training done," Winter said, distinctly unimpressed.

Ruby shrugged. "It's not that hard, and the danger makes it harder! And what better way to excel than to start running as soon as you can?"

"The phrase 'run before you can walk', and in my case it's more running before I can crawl," Winter said quietly.

"Aww, does Ms. Winter think she can't do it? So sad. Guess you'll just have to show her how Rubes," Uncle Qrow's voice said from the aura transference machine as he stepped out from behind the thing.

"Qrow!?"

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby cheered, as she turned on the powers and called the wind to her feet, flinging herself in what she would call only a small resemblance of her usual speed demon.

The man had only a second to actually try to react, but he grabbed her as she flew by. "Hey, hey, not so close to the door now. We're trying to keep what's behind it safe, yeah? No sense in opening it for anyone that's here," Qrow explained as he spun Ruby around, flinging her after a moment to Winter.

Ruby stopped in midair, turning around. "Wait, that is a door!?"

"I wasn't expecting you all to beat me here," Ozpin's voice said from the elevator as the old man stepped out. The green lighting of the area shone off his coat and the Long Memory clacked on the ground. "It's good to see you again, Winter. How has it been?"

Winter took a moment to answer. "Enlightening," she eventually decided on, before she wrestled with herself for wondering if she should go on or not.

Ruby had seen her do that plenty of times in the last few days. "Yeah, she's good at some of the emotions like ice, but she hasn't quite gotten wind down yet," Ruby said as she attempted to run on the air. Her legs went nowhere, and after a moment Ruby realized she had to use thd wind to move herself around.

"Thank. You. Ruby," Winter said sharply.

"Becoming the successor to someone like Fria is no easy feat, I assure you," Ozpin said gently. "There is much that she can use to describe, but it is a complete other ability to be actually using it."

"Speaking of! Ozpin! Time!" Ruby shouted as she shot into the air. She tried to stop as she reached the ceiling only to realize that she was keeping on going, and crashed with a rough sound before she came down a second later.

"After you finish the change magic," Ozpin said easily. He looked towards Winter. "I promised her I would teach her the basics of the slow time spell if she managed to finish her animal transformation. I take it she hasn't done it yet, otherwise she would have already done it."

"No. She does have the ears and tail."

"The firecracker has the ears and tail but no body yet!? Ruby!" Qrow grinned as he turned to tease her. "Come on, I bet you'd make the cutest little puppy ever."

"I'd be a wolf, you know that!"

"Cutest. Puppy. Ever."

"There's Zwei."

"Second. Cutest. Puppy. Ever," Qrow said after a short moment. "Come on, it's not that hard, it's just..." he said, before a puff of smoke encroached him, and a crow bounced out of it. It gave a mocking 'caw' before he flew off onto one of the rocks.

"Grr..." Ruby growled, before she used her own change magic, hoping that it would actually work this time. It didn't, and instead all she got was the ears and the tail. She glanced behind her, seeing it wag happily. "Oh come on!"

Winter hid her mouth behind her hand. "Marrow sometimes has the same trouble..." she murmured. "Headmaster Ozpin. Do you have any tips on how to use the maiden's power?" she asked.

"No tips, I'm afraid, nothing that Ruby wouldn't already have given you. At this point it's just time and practice. And she is getting that change faster."

"How is she doing that?" Winter asked. "Fria always said the magic was purely elemental."

"For most maidens, it is," Ozpin clarified. "But make no mistake, elemental magic is still a force of nature. It has to do with the nature of the magic of the world, and how the old wizards and witches used to use it."

"Could you please clarify?"

"Certainly. Most wizards and witches were what were called 'small' time magic users. Hedge witches, or hedge wizards the proper word was. In other words, magic users that could barely...trim a hedge. They didn't have much magic power, as their bodies were not good fits for the flow of energy."

"Like the Semblances," Qrow said as he changed back, giving a mocking salute to Winter. "Those would get us classed as hedges."

Ruby kept up her flying, trying to just stand in place. The tail actually helped. But she still kept trying to listen in.

"Precisely. There were those with great wells of power, such as Salem or myself. However, hedge magic users had a very large advantage to them. Because they had little power beyond the one spell, they could master that spell beyond the depths of anyone else.

"Others with wells, on the other hand, could cast a lot of different spells but that in turn became more challenging. Eventually, between Salem and myself while we were both...well, still alive, broke magic down into multiple pieces."

"Pieces?"

"Things such as Temporal, Transformation, Elemental, Artifice, and others. Temporal is just that, time magic. Transformation is the magic to change someone or something from one shape to another. As this does not have any affect on the soul or on clarity, we distinctly did not call it alchemy, although we could have."

"Elemental is what the maiden's use."

"Exactly," Ozpin nodded. "However, when I shattered my well of power into four to imbue the maiden's, I did not break the pieces. By all rights, all the maiden's can use every 'piece' or branch of magic. You all have access to it. However, the magicks are far more difficult than basic elemental blasts."

"Why did you shatter it? It seems like a weird thing to do when you know that Salem didn't," Qrow asked from the top. "Come on Ruby, faster, and faster!" he cheered.

Ruby was concentrating on the wind beneath her, twisting the wind underneath her to greater and greater speeds. "I think I got it!" she cheered.

"Would you believe I just wanted to die?" Ozpin asked after a moment. "This was nearly...six hundred years ago, I believe? I was tired. I wanted my rest."

Winter nodded. "Ruby, I think you should stop..." Winter tried, before Ruby tried to lean forward a little, shooting forward almost as fast as she could on her Semblance.

Instantly she was at the wall, and instead of stopping Ruby pushed out her legs and ran up the wall.

The tornado of wind was beneath her, and she jumped off the wall to land on it as she zoomed to the other side. This was awesome! She could do this so much, and she could just go 'bang' and be over in another corner! As fast as she could go with her Semblance and with Crescent Rose, she could go almost faster!

"Ruby, look out for that rock!" Qrow's voice said aloud.

Ruby turned to look at him for a moment. What rock? She didn't see any rock...she glanced in front of her, seeing a large rock suddenly reach out of the stone as if to punch her.

It certainly punched her, and Ruby felt her aura start to work on the wounds as the wind naturally dissipated. "That looked painful," Winter said after a moment.

"It is!" Ruby called out. "I'm okay!"

Winter at the Shop

Ruby was not okay. She was alive, certainly, and aura would make sure that she would make a quick recovery, but that left Winter...

At Ruby's shop.

By herself.

And of course it wasn't a planned closing day, and Ruby wasn't about to take one off randomly because what if some Hunter needed ammunition quickly and the only shop they could get it was from hers!?

Really, Winter held the belief that Ruby should stop trying to move so fast and instead slow down to actually heal or more appropriately learn.

That said, it had been rather funny, now that she knew everything was okay, to watch as Ruby ran up a wall before slamming body first into a rock.

Zwei was next to her, and she stood staring at the door as the button turned from orange to green. Ruby was upstairs, resting in the bed, after getting a promise from Ozpin to never try healing magic. Not without going through medical school at least. Winter could agree with that, as she had no doubt that she couldn't control the maiden's powers any better.

That said, she could do ice without having to feel fear or uncertainty, or any other emotion that would link to it. And she still had her glyphs, and she was an extremely competent Huntress. She could handle a shop for an afternoon or two.

The door opened, and a rabbit faunus clad in brown walked in. "Oh hey," she said, having a faint accent about her. "Where's Ruby?" she asked.

"Training accident," Winter answered easily and instantly. It had the benefit of being true, too, unlike what General Ironwood would have tried to say. Benefits of not lying to everyone, General Ironwood.

"Oh. Is she okay?" she asked quietly, her head tilted gently. "Not too badly hurt?"

If she had been 'not badly hurt', then why wouldn't she be here? Winter sighed. She was a Specialist, the best of the best, and that didn't include dealing with civilians of all things. Well, it did actually, but she'd managed to be promoted out of that space fairly quickly. She still remembered the 'crossing guard' incidents, and she wondered if that was why General Ironwood had grabbed her so quick.

"She ran into a wall at full speed," Winter finally explained. The girl winced, and Winter surmised that she must have known Ruby well. Ruby's speed wasn't the best kept of secrets, but knowing just how fast the girl could go...well, that would certainly leave a mark.

"Ah. Well...uh, if you can, could you tell her that Velvet wants her to take a look at Anesidora?" the girl asked, taking out a small black box. Winter blinked as she set it on the counter, the black box opening up to reveal a large camera.

That was a weapon? What kind of weapons could someone do with a camera of all things? Was she going to steal people's souls via camera flash? That was about the only thing that made sense to Winter.

Velvet...that name was familiar. Vytal Festival Tournament, she recalled. Part of...team coffee. No, Team CFVY. Oobleck had made that joke more times than she could count. Rabbit faunus. What was her weapon? Hardlight construction?

She must use the camera for hardlight generation. That's impressively difficult, and it's no surprise then to Winter that she needs it maintained by a professional. And Winter was no professional when it came to mechashift weapons.

Although technically it wasn't mechashift, but rather just plain. However, it was still a complicated piece of machinery, and Winter had honed her skills on weapon maintenance to be able to handle the basics on all weapons. Nothing nearly as complex as a hardlight generator camera.

And this was what Ruby dealt with? She'd known the girl was skilled, it was impossible not to, but another notch in the 'begrudging respect' category.

"I'll be sure to let her know," Winter answered. "Can I ask what's all wrong with it?"

"Ruby can understand it, but the third aperture is loose by nearly five millimeters, and the first aperture is slow by an additional half a second, which throws the entire thing off. Combine that with the base needing to re-set, and I need to finish a bunch of homework, I don't have time to do it myself," Velvet explained.

Winter blinked, but nodded. She knew nothing about cameras, let alone cameras that acted as weapons which apparently Ruby did, and that was shocking enough. Were half of those words even normal? They were, she knew, but having them refer to a camera?

But...she could write it down easy enough. She grabbed her scroll and started to quickly type up a message, while Zwei gently pawed at her ankle. Winter looked down to see the puppy bring her a pad of paper and a pencil.

"Oh. Thank you Zwei," Winter said quietly, wondering when exactly she realized that the dog was smarter than she thought it would be. By all rights, Zwei was a dog, aura-trained or not, so he shouldn't be nearly on the same mental status as a human.

And yet he was.

"I'll leave it here then. If Ruby can't make it in the next few days, I'll come back. Anyways, hope she gets better soon. Bye!" Velvet called out as she left the camera on the glass counter, running out towards the door. Winter took a sigh of relief as she left, before carefully packaging up the camera, and putting it on a shelf in the back labeled 'projects to be worked on'.

At the least, Ruby's shop was relatively well labeled and clean. She had to give the girl at least some props for that, despite the inherent madness that belied teenagers.

She and Weiss were different, of course. They were Schnees, and they'd been brought up that neatness and tidiness was a very good quality to have, and they'd been drilled into doing so from a young age. Winter had long since suspected that Ruby was not as well trained, especially as Qrow was her uncle.

The door opened again, and this time two members of Team PABY walked in. Winter remembered these two especially. Yang Xiao Long and Blake Belladonna.

She'd been told early on to try to avoid these two, one with near concrete ties to the White Fang at some point, and the other was the Fall Maiden's sister. That meant that she was probably on the list for becoming the next Fall Maiden should anything to Ruby.

"Huh. So Goodwitch was right, you are down here," Yang said immediately as she walked in. She had one hand on her hip, and narrowed eyes. "Where's Ruby?"

"Upstairs, resting," Winter answered instantly. She reached out with one hand to stop the cat faunus from bolting up there. "She wishes to be left alone," Winter lied carefully.

Footsteps from above her proved her lie as Qrow walked down them. "Actually she's up and moving, just more surprised that taking a rock to the chest hurt as much as it did," Qrow explained. Dread hit Winter's back of her mind faster than Ruby had flown around. If he was here, that meant that there was a possibility that someone else could get up there.

She'd thought that the window was shut and locked from the inside. But if Qrow could get in without any problems, that meant they had real security issues.

She would have to make the call to General Ironwood that Ruby's security is extremely lax. There was no way that Qrow could simply have just vanished and popped into the upstairs apartment, crow or not. If she worded it right, she could make an all electronic security suite that would be unbreakable by all enemies.

"What?" Blake asked, one eyebrow raised. "What...how does that...she's taken worse hits before."

"Yeah she has," Yang smirked as she saw Qrow walk down. "So what was she doing and how silly was it?"

Qrow chuckled darkly. "Attempting to teach this one how to fly," he said, pointing to Winter. Blake and Yang both turned to stare at her, and in turn Winter glared at Qrow. That was supposed to remain an Atlas secret. That was not a secret to be blabbed about in front of anyone, let alone one member of a veritable enemy organization and a potential enemy combatant!

"He means nothing," Winter said instantly. "I can use my glyphs for some amount of levitation," she came up with on the spot, "and I wanted to see how Ms. Rose's methodology was different than my own."

"Hmm," Yang nodded. "I'm calling it. Blake?" she asked.

"Definite lie," Blake agreed. "She has a good poker face though."

"Oh yeah, I wouldn't want to play poker with her at all. Especially with Qrow behind her," Yang said with a smirk.

Winter wheeled around to see that Qrow was whistling innocently, looking up and far too innocent to actually be. "What are you looking at me for, I did nothing wrong!" he asked.

"Ruby doesn't wish to see anyone," Winter scowled at the two, only for Blake's Semblance to vanish in front of her. When had the girl shifted to her Semblance? More importantly, where was she right now.

If anyone with an illusory Semblance can just waltz in then there was nothing to actually protect the darn girl. General Ironwood had told her that Ruby's security was bad, but he had no idea just how bad it was.

A full electronic sweeping suite would be necessary, Winter supposed. With full around closed circuit recordings, streamed directly to someone either in Beacon or in Atlas.

"Yeah? I bet she wishes to see Blake right now," Yang said, leaning against one of the weapon racks. "Considering how long she was up here sick the other day."

"I can hear you Yang," Blake's deadpan voice called from the top. There was a small laugh from the top followed by an 'ouch'. "And you made her laugh and hurt herself. You're a terrible sister," Blake's deadpan continued.

Qrow gave a dark chuckle. "Welcome to the crew Winter, this is how we do things."

Winter growled. Where was the safety concerns, where were the drills, where was the propriety!? A full electronic suite with plenty of bells and whistles, a top of the line security suite that leaves nothing uncovered. Even the pipes of the bathroom should be covered ground!

"Oh sure, I'm a terrible sister," Yang said as she rolled her eyes, starting to walk up. She casually tried to brush Winter aside, only for Winter to stand her ground.

She was under strict orders and there a known illusionist who could appear as anyone. What's to say that she couldn't appear with their voices too!? If it wasn't for the fact that Mercury and Emerald were both locked in Atlas cells, she'd suggest to be on the guard for those two too!

"One. At. A. Time," Winter scowled.

"Nah, Yang's fine," Ruby's voice called out from the top. There was still a sense of pain in it. "Besides. Qrow was here for a while too!"

"And we have to talk about that part too," Winter scowled towards the older man. He gave a smug shrug, before he marched to the top of the stairs.

"You know, when I heard my sister was hurt, my first instinct was to come down and check on her," Yang said quietly. "I just want to make sure she's okay." Winter stayed, unmoved. Yang could appeal to her all she wanted, she wouldn't move. "Wouldn't you do the same for Weiss?" she asked after a second.

Winter stared. "I can't. Not yet. It's not secure," she said quietly. Yang would know the perfect thing to get her to want to move, but all of her training said otherwise.

Yang stared right back, her purple eyes boring into Winter's. "Then I'll stay right here until it is. I'm not moving, not until I know for certain." Winter nodded. She definitely approved of her determination. Especially as Ruby yelled for Yang to come on up a moment later, followed by another 'ouch'. Winter took a deep breath, obviously bothered by how lax Ruby was taking her safety, before she took a step back.

Chapter Text

Disclaimer: RWBY is owned by VIZ Media. I do not make any money off the publication of this fanfiction. Please support the official release.

Back to Patch

Ruby scowled as the boat continued to go on its merry way, short as it was. She didn't need to be on this trip, she wanted to be back in the shop where she should be! Instead Winter had come in later in the day when she was just starting to feel better and demand that she get a full on security suite installed thanks to Atlas.

But because it was so 'thorough', according to Winter, no one was allowed to be in the building while the maintenance and installing was going on. Ruby disagreed again, but she was outvoted, this time by Qrow stating it was probably a good bet. Cursed Uncle Qrow! Why did he have to agree with Winter this one time!? It was like it was his job or something to make her as annoyed as possible. Which, to be fair, he was an uncle, which meant that yeah it probably was.

But what that all meant was that they had a free weekend, and Yang had jokingly given the suggestion to go visit Patch for a bit. Ruby hadn't been back since before everything had been going on, and it wasn't as if she wasn't eager to go back. But it was Patch! She'd gotten used to the Vale hustle and bustle, the quickness of city life, she was no longer just the country bumpkin!

On the other hand, Yang and Blake had volunteered to go with her. Apparently Pyrrha had gotten a detention, which Ruby had a hard time believing, because she'd been too eager in a fight to go for the 'troublesome' parts, according to Yang.

Ruby was sixteen, she knew what a kick to the groin meant. She hadn't done it on Jaune actually, which was kind of a surprise, but to some guy named Cardin who was...apparently well known for acting like a jerk? The name was familiar to her, but she couldn't quite remember why.

Oh well, probably wasn't important.

But that said, Pyrrha was out in detention, and Jaune was off trying to console her about Yang being a bad influence.

Ruby knew that was true, as much as the blonde bruiser ignored it.

And in turn for Winter forcing Ruby into this stupid upgrade maintenance security thing, Ruby had forced Winter to come along. After all, what better way to practice flight or emotion based magic than by having no other distractions! It was how she learned, by having way too many distractions and being unable to center herself in any way, shape, or form!

And if she could do that, then obviously Winter could do it too, and if it meant that she got to see Winter with a sunburn well...that was just icing on the cake.

Never let it be said that Ruby didn't hold grudges.

Even she wouldn't know what she'd do if she saw Emerald. On the other hand, this was where Neo was last seen. She should probably warn someone that Neo was there, but really the chance of her coming across the girl was slim to none.

The boat, because Winter had said that aircraft was a lot easier to take down than a boat was, was moving far too slow for Ruby's tastes. But it wasn't all bad. Yang had 'conveniently' forgotten to have enough sunscreen for all of them, so it was just her and Blake covered in it. Ruby had plenty of her own, because she knew Patch better than most and even if it didn't seem like the sun was dangerous, it was.

What that meant though was that Winter was covered head to toe in the Atlas white getup that she had, with a far too large hat that made Ruby think she was a character from one of her books. Particularly a pirate queen. The only thing missing was the feather in the cap.

She even had the swords for the role! Although she doubted that Winter would ever let herself be caught by the dashing male lead, whomever it was. She'd do the rescuing of herself herself.

"Feeling alright?" Blake asked as she came up to her. "You're frowning again," she said as she leaned against the bow. She wasn't quite dressed in her usual getup, instead taking the time to avoid the stockings she usually had on with simple sneakers and some jeans, along with one of Yang's brown jackets. Ruby wondered how Yang would've let her go with one of those, she was usually protective of the things. At least it was fitting better on Blake than it usually did on Yang!

"I'm fine. Just still kind of mad that the shop's being upgraded and this time I don't even have a say in it," Ruby muttered. "Like, it's my shop! Why does Atlas get to go over and just steamroll whatever it is I want to do?"

"Admittedly, it is a security system, and Atlas' are pretty good," Blake answered, shrugging. "You don't even have to pay for it. Isn't that a silver lining?"

"You'd think," Ruby said, turning back around and facing her, jumping to sit on the bow's railing. "But didn't you say like...a year and a half ago or something that their security wasn't the best?"

"I said they were easy to hack once you knew how," Blake answered. "And then I made a few adjustments to your scroll where no one except you could see it. I'll do the same for these one's too. What all are they planning on putting in?"

"Closed circuit cameras, full microphones everywhere, a window detector that goes off if a window's open, the only thing it doesn't have is full artificial intelligence," Ruby said. She gave a quiet sigh. "And that's fair, but that's the one feature I requested. I want to talk to an actual AI darn it."

"You've met Penny, right?" Blake asked, her head tilted to the side a bit with a concerned look.

What did Penny have to do with AI? Just because she was a robot didn't mean she was an artificial intelligence. Ruby nodded. "Of course I have. She had me repair Floating Array and when I was in Atlas helping build Winter's new weapons."

"...Right," Blake simply nodded. "Alright then," she answered quietly. "What're your plans for Patch?"

"I don't know yet," Ruby answered honestly. "I meant to show Winter around the town a bit. You're welcome to join too," Ruby remembered to invite her at the last second. "I don't know what Yang has planned, but it's probably not good."

"Yang's actually calmed down over the last few months. Although that's probably Pyrrha and Jaune's influence," Blake admitted.

"And yours. Don't sell yourself short," Ruby said. "Sometimes all it takes is someone to simply be quiet and listen, and you do that well. Not to mention she's getting older."

"I am not!" Yang shouted from near the stern. Ruby grinned as Yang marched up to her. "You...can take that back," she said, glaring at her sister.

"Could, but we both know it's true," Ruby said. "Besides, that's not a bad thing. When you're older you don't need to worry about things like age limits."

"I can drive."

"Never said you couldn't?" Ruby asked, tilting her head. "Besides, what are you doing once we get back to Patch?" She had a feeling she knew, but it didn't really hurt to ask. This was Yang anyways, she was never offended at anything Ruby did.

Yang looked contemplative for a moment. "You know, I don't know yet. I might go visit Dad for a bit. You know, let him know we're coming."

"You didn't tell Dad we were coming?"

"I thought you were supposed to. You're the reliable one."

"You're older than me!"

"Doesn't make me more mature than you!"

Blake snickered, immediately drawing both of the sister's ire. "Sorry," she said holding up her hands, "it's just...I can tell you're related. You both have the same tells when you're angry but not actually upset."

Ruby relaxed after a moment, sharing a glance with Yang. "We do?" she asked.

Yang nodded. "It does make sense. I know Dad's said I got more my temper from him than egg-donor."

"Egg-donor?" Blake asked, tilting her head.

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, Yang and I are half-sister's. Same Dad, different Mom's. Although Summer was really more of our actual mom than anything, hence why Yang refers to her biological mom as simply her 'egg-donor'."

"Yeah, it's something I've been working on for a while. I've been wanting to ask her why she left us way back when, but every lead I have just dried up by the time Beacon started. Haven't had time once Beacon started."

"So your mom just...up and left?" Blake asked. "I mean, I'm not glad for it, but I'm kind of glad, because then Ruby's mom could step in-"

"Yeah, Summer was like...super mom or something. She was always going around the house, making sure we were comforted, but she also pushed us a lot," Yang nodded. There was a light tone to it, reminiscing as she was.

"She did?" Ruby asked. "I don't remember that."

"Okay, maybe she pushed me," Yang clarified. "She was always telling me that if I wanted to be strong like Dad, I needed to go out in the yard and practice my aura control or just by punching the training dummy."

"I remember that," Ruby said after a moment. "I was always following you trying to get you to play with me."

"Is that what you were saying? I thought you saying 'fight me, fight me,'" Yang smirked as she pitched her voice high to sound like a kid Ruby.

"No, it was definitely 'play with me'," Ruby defended herself. "But yeah...I miss Mom."

"I know Ruby. I do too," Yang said quietly. "But hey, Blake, you have to have some stories too about your parents."

"I do, but most of them involve the White Fang. We could always ask Winter," Blake suggested.

Winter looked at them from the side of the ferry, staring off at the horizon. "Don't even ask, Belladonna. I'm certain of the four of us the only one with a normal childhood here is you," Winter said sharply.

"Ouch, told off by the Winter," Yang smirked. "And I mean, I had a normal childhood."

"Not really. Once Mom disappeared, you tried to take over for her, and that couldn't have been easy," Ruby answered. "Dad was there, but..."

"Not really there," Yang finished. "It wasn't easy, that's for sure. That's really what got me started on finding the egg-donor, actually. I figured if I could ask her why she left, then maybe I could be a better sister."

"You don't need to try," Ruby answered instantly. "You're already the best."

Blake gave a small 'aww'. "Thanks Ruby," Yang said. "But I felt I needed to. No sign of her yet though."

Ruby nodded. The last she'd heard of Yang's mother, Raven Branwen, was that she'd got in a fight in Ruby's shop not too long ago. She hadn't told Yang that bit yet, nor was she particularly going to. It wasn't that she was afraid of what Yang would think, and if they switched positions then Yang would do the exact same thing.

She was also Qrow's sister, so maybe Qrow has some information on where she could be, but Ruby wasn't particularly worried about it. Whatever it is that Raven was doing, it probably had nothing to do with Yang or Ruby. And to be honest, Ruby wanted nothing to do with her.

"If anything comes up, I'll let you know," Ruby lied easily. Yang nodded, and Ruby hoped that she wasn't too see through.

"What's her name? Maybe we can find her that way," Blake asked. "The White Fang does have a host of profiles of prolific people all over Remnant. I doubt it'd be easy, but maybe I could get something."

"I suggest not doing that when you have a Specialist of Atlas within earshot," Winter called out. "I also suggest not talking about it either."

Blake ignored her, and looked over at Yang. "Raven. Raven Branwen. Last I heard from her was that she was in Vale during team Stark's years."

Blake nodded. "Yeah, I'll ask my mom and dad at some point. Maybe they'll have some information or something."

"Or at least be able to point us to which country. I doubt she's still in Vale though, and probably not Vacuo or Solitas, so my guess is Anima and Mistral," Ruby said.

"I'm not too worried at this point. I've done what I could, and that's the end of that," Yang shrugged. "But if she does appear in front of me, then yeah, I want to get those answers. Even if it means beating them out of her."

"That's probably the only way you could ever get them," Winter muttered sharply from the side.

On the Hill

"Finally!" Ruby shouted as she looked over the bow of the ferry. It had taken nearly an entire day to get to Patch from Vale, and there was only so much watching the horizon and waiting for the sight of land to do!

"It's barely been three hours," Yang commented from the side. "You usually stand around in your store for nine or ten hours each day. How is this so much harder for you?"

"Because at the shop I have things to do! The only thing I can do here is either attempt magic or see if there's any sea Grimm nearby, and considering the last one was an hour and a half ago-"

"You're welcome, by the way," Winter smirked.

"Kill stealer! I had it!" Ruby shouted. She turned to Blake. "You trust me that I had it, right?"

Blake was trying hard not to smirk, the smile just barely playing on her lips. "I know you had it," she agreed. "But you have to admit, it was impressive when Winter did that flip."

"It was far too showy," Winter said from the side. "It would've been better to just run in from the ship side."

"Yes, but not nearly as flashy," Yang answered. "I thought it was good. So! Patch! What's your first stop Ruby? Seeing Dad?"

"Probably wouldn't be a bad thing," Ruby agreed. "You did promise you'd tell him that we were coming once we got back into scroll range."

"Could. Should. Won't," Yang said. "I want to see the look on his face when we go and surprise him."

"Just make sure to stay far away from the oven."

"I promise I won't burn down the island. Unlike what you did," Yang shot back.

"That was supposed to be a graduation present for you!" Ruby answered. "And besides, it wasn't my fault that it did all that..."

"I know," Yang smiled. "Just teasing. Alright, Ruby can show you all around unless you want to see the party scene...small as it is. If you want to rest, see that small brown house that's surrounded by trees nearly half the island away from anyone else? That's our house."

"You live in the middle of the forest?" Blake asked.

Ruby nodded. "Yep! That way Dad can add whatever rooms he wants to add and he doesn't need to worry about permits."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Winter muttered.

"It's Patch, there is no permit process out here. There are inspections though, and you have to pass those before you can sell anything," Yang explained. Winter glared at her with a huff, getting another quiet chuckle out of Yang.

The ferry slowly made its way to the dock, and with a small and near silent crash the whole thing stopped against a concrete dock. A few workers on the dock threw over ropes, and a worker on the ferry tied the ropes around parts of the ferry, before they let down the railing, allowing people to head off.

Ruby waited for a moment, and nodded as Yang walked out Bumblebee, the yellow and red motorcycle not getting any strange looks, before she hopped on. "That figures. She wanted a day to come back and maintain it," Ruby muttered.

"She doesn't do that in Beacon?" Winter asked. "I would think there's plenty of opportunities."

"Opportunities, sure, but not nearly as many tools," Blake answered. "Apparently she kept all her tools back here."

"Why wouldn't she? It's usually just a quick Bullhead flight away," Ruby said. "Barely takes an hour, and the flights out here always have room enough for her."

Before anyone else could say something, Ruby grinned as she took a deep breath. "Right! Patch!" Ruby said, getting both Blake and Winter's attention. "So this'll be your first time on the island, and we're a small community here-"

Someone called out from the side, "Ruby we have nearly six thousand people."

"A small community here!" Ruby reaffirmed. "These are the docks, they were the first thing ever built here-"

That same person sighed. "They're docks. Of course they were built first..."

"And off to the left you can see someone who does not realize when people are trying to show off Patch!" Ruby commented without missing a beat. That got a laugh out of some of the bystanders before they started heading back to their ship, or whatever it is they were doing on the docks.

It was weird, being back on Patch. She recognized everything, exactly as she thought she would, and yet it all seemed different. Like coming home after a long time away. Familiar, and yet different. She made sure to show off the places that Blake would find entertaining first. The small row of bookstores that often 'battled' with each other by hosting sales at the same time, only to sponsor the same book club all together. Her favorite arcade that'd been opened for years, still going strong surprisingly.

Yang's favorite club, which catered to Hunters-in-Training like those of Signal. They didn't serve any alcohol, but it was a place to unwind.

The actual town of Patch, on the island of Patch if that wasn't confusing enough, was surprisingly large for a small island. It took up around a third of the island, with another third simply forested over and the last third being the various farms or where those that stayed out of the town often had their homes.

The fact that most of those people were retired Huntsman or Huntresses, and they had their homes against the forest's edge, again spoke of why Patch was doing so well. She did take them over to Signal, and made sure to keep an eye out for anyone that would recognize her duplicate. This was where Neo had been seen last, for reasons that honestly escaped her.

But no one stopped her, no one asked how she was doing or what she was doing there, only welcoming her back to Patch. Either Neo had done a fantastic job pretending to be her or Dad had gotten the message across that it hadn't been Ruby.

She made sure to keep the field where she'd almost blown up half of the island out of her little tour. And if Blake happened to catch it, well, the cat faunus didn't say anything. As big as Patch was, there really wasn't much for her to show off, and she ended her makeshift 'tour' by starting to head up the dirt and rock road that led up through the trees.

There were slight hills around here, and Ruby started to grin as she recognized the pathways. These were her roads, the roads she ran since she was a little kid. She learned how to ride a bike here, how to run, how to walk, how to fight, how to kill Grimm. This was home. Although...there was one thing she wanted to do before she got there. "Mind if we make one last stop before we head to Dad's house?" Ruby asked.

Winter shrugged. "I have no opinion. I have never seen Patch before."

"I don't have a problem with it. Lead the way," Blake nodded. Ruby grinned, as she bolted off to a small dirt side path. It wandered and meandered through the treeline, occasionally going over a fallen tree that Ruby knew hadn't fallen when she'd last come through here.

"Keep your eyes out for Grimm. This is where they'd be if nothing else, but generally we don't deal with anything except beowulves, and maybe ursa if we're unlucky," Ruby said sagely. She was good at keeping an eye out, but with three of them, it would always attract more attention from the Grimm than one person, no matter how sad they were.

Ruby jumped over another fallen tree, and she felt the path start to jump upwards. Where she was going was built onto a hillside, just above a cliff that overlooked the entirety of Patch. Dad wasn't the most spiritual of people, but Ruby knew that he liked the idea of Summer watching over everyone anyways, even if her body wasn't buried. Her spirit was on Patch, and in all of them.

The tree line started to thin out, and Ruby stared with a soft smile at the most familiar of skylines. The field was vast, and yet ended all the same in a powerful cliff. "Final part. Not long now," Ruby said.

"That's not too far at all," Blake muttered. "We've only been running for a few minutes."

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, Dad wanted her close more than anything else," Ruby explained.

Both Winter and Blake stared at her for a moment, before they glanced towards each other with a 'her?' look on their face.

There weren't any Grimm in the field, for once. They loved to come here, given the feelings that Ruby and Yang most often had when visiting. But this wasn't a sad visit. This was a...this was a happy visit. At the top of the cliff was a simple rock rectangle, buried into the ground.

'Summer Rose; Thus Kindly I Scatter'.

"Hi Mom," Ruby introduced instantly as soon as she saw the rock. Blake's ears pulled back and her eyes widened a bit, as if she hadn't realized where Ruby was taking them. Maybe she hadn't. Ruby knew where she was going. She knew this entire area by heart.

"It's...been a while, I know. A lot's happened though. And...I think I know more than I did when I left. I got expelled from Signal, but don't worry! Don't get upset, everything turned out for the better. I wanted to celebrate Yang graduating and well, it got out of hand," Ruby explained to the air. "But then...well, things got better. Yang's in Beacon, this is Blake Belladonna, she's one of Yang's teammates. Her partner, actually, although I wish her the best of luck," Ruby joked as Blake sent her an exasperated glare. "I started a weapons shop. With your name on it, I hope you don't mind. It's turned out good, I think."

She paused for a moment. There was never an answer, but Ruby didn't need one to know that her mom was listening, wherever she was. "I...stopped a bad person from killing a lot of people. And that's what Huntresses do, right? And I became the Fall Maiden, if you know what that is. Winter Schnee's the Winter, right behind me. I wonder then if you'd have been the Summer Maiden, considering the nomenclature thing going on."

Winter stared at her. "I don't think my name has anything to do with the Winter Maiden."

"Probably not but you have to admit it's kind of on point. Winter, Winter Maiden, Cinder, Fall Maiden, etc," Ruby explained.

"So...if you don't know, that means I have magic powers now. Like actual, real magic! Just like the fairy tales!" Ruby grinned. "I can do a lot of cool things now," she said as she pulled out Sundered Crescent. "And...Crescent Rose got destroyed. So...I had to remake her. Brand new. I used a bit of your weapon too, or my memories of it at least for her. Sundered Crescent. She's got all kinds of cool things that she can do! And she can fire almost any type of shell from the rifle and gun portion! Smaller than a cannonball, at least. Haven't quite worked out that portion yet, but I assume that spacial reconfiguration magic is possible!"

"It is!?"

"Why wouldn't it be!?" Ruby grinned, turning around for a moment. "Flying is, changing from human to faunus is, time control is, so why wouldn't spacial reconfiguration be!?"

"Because that could destroy the world!?"

Blake's ears flattened. "Please don't destroy the world in the course of trying to learn everything you can do Ruby," she pleaded.

"I make several promises!" Ruby answered. "And don't worry Mom, I'll be back a bit more now. For the whole Yang's graduation thing I got exiled and expelled, but Ozpin's promised me a spot in Beacon next year, assuming I pass orientation. But he also doesn't see why I wouldn't."

"To be fair, I don't see why you wouldn't," Blake muttered. "Practically better than I am, and that's without the whole magic thing."

"Dad's a good teacher," Ruby grinned. "I'll be back up again at some point, Mom. But for now, I gotta make sure these two get home safe. I'll tell Yang to stop by!" she said as she turned around to the other two. Winter looked deep in thought, and Blake's eyes were glued to the horizon.

"Come on, it's not far from here to the house. And yeah...that's Patch. In its entirety," Ruby said, motioning out towards the small town just below them.

She burst out into her Semblance as she raced down the hill, ignoring the shouts of Blake and Winter.